human
Edward, it has just struck me for the first time, that if father really did put an end to his existence--and I am afraid we must accept it as the saddest of all sad facts that he did so--we had no right to claim the amount of his life policy from the Insurance Company.
gpt
Yes, he exclaimed, in a harsh, strained voice,
human
I have been wondering whether that would be one of the points of objection which you would see fit to raise.
gpt
It is one which failed to strike me till the present moment.
human
What would you have done, I wonder, had you been in my place? That is a question which you will do well to think over at your leisure. Had a claim for the twelve thousand pounds not been sent in in due course, comment would have been aroused, which would inevitably have bred suspicion, and that, in its turn, would probably have led to inquiry; and what the latter, when once set afoot, would have led to, you can judge as well as I. Besides, what excuse could I have made to my mother and Fannie for not claiming the amount? I could have made no excuse; everything must have been told them. In addition, as I have already explained to you, without the twelve thousand pounds they would only have been a step or two removed from pauperism--in which case the fact of my not having claimed on the policy must have become known to everybody. Bah! I might just as well have gone and read out my father's letter at the market cross.
gpt
All that in no way alters the character of the transaction,
human
Oh, it was a fraud--a gross and palpable fraud--I fully admit that, exclaimed the elder brother, with a harsh laugh.
gpt
Even to myself I have never attempted to call it by any other name; only, when you are weighing it in your thoughts, I should like you to put into the opposite scale the trifling facts I have just laid before you. To you they may seem to weigh less than they did with me; but no man can gauge accurately the force of another's temptations. Enough, however, of this for the present.
human
John Brancker tells me, he said,
gpt
Yes, he gave me his version of the affair; but I can't help saying that he seems to me to be excessively thin-skinned. I certainly should not have allowed myself to be put down in the way he seems to have done.
human
A rather extreme sensitiveness to the opinion of others is as much a part of John as the color of his hair or the shape of his nose. Think what it must have been to a man of his temperament to go through all that he has gone through during the last six months! You and I, who are of tougher fibre, can but partially realize it. And what is to become of him in the future? The shadow of a crime with which he had nothing whatever to do still clings to him, and may do so for years to come. He is eating his heart out in dumb despair.