human
What a shame for that erotic old woman to have bought and married a man so much younger than herself! No wonder he ran away from her! She had been positively shocked by the spectacle of the well-dressed, well-behaved, quiet-voiced, prim, decrepit creature with her aristocratic voice. And her knowledge of the possibilities of human nature was thenceforth enlarged. And when George Cannon (known to the law only as Canonges) had received two years’ hard labour for going through a ceremony of marriage with herself, she had esteemed, despite all her resentment against him, that his chief sin lay in his real first marriage, not in his false second one, and that for that sin the old woman was the more deserving of punishment. And when the old woman had with strange naïvete written to say that she had become a convert to Roman Catholicism and that her marriage and her imprisoned bigamous husband were henceforth to her sacred, Hilda had reflected sardonically:
gpt
Of course it is always that sort of woman that turns to religion, when she’s too old for anything else! And when the news came that her deceiver had got ten years’ penal servitude (and might have got penal servitude for life) for uttering a forged Bank-of-England note, Hilda had reflected in the same strain:
human
Of course, a man who would behave as George behaved to me would be just the man to go about forging bank notes! I am not in the least astonished. What an inconceivable simpleton I was!
gpt
You and I have shared this man, we alone in all the world. Mrs. Cannon seemed to imagine that Hilda would be interested. She was right. Hilda was interested. Her implacability relented. Her vindictiveness forgave. She pondered with almost intolerable compassion upon the vision of George Cannon suffering unjustly month after long month interminably the horrors of a convict’s existence. She read with morbidity reports of Assizes, and picked up from papers and books and from Mrs. Cannon pieces of information about prisons. When he was transferred to Parkhurst in the Isle of Wight on account of ill-health, she was glad, because she knew that Parkhurst was less awful than Portland, and when from Parkhurst he was sent to Dartmoor she tried to hope that the bracing air would do him good. She no longer thought of him as a criminal at all, but simply as one victim of his passion for herself; she, Hilda, had been the other victim. She raged in secret against the British Judicature, its delays, its stoniness, its stupidity. And when the principal witness in support of Cannon’s petition died, she raged against fate. The movement for Cannon’s release slackened for months. Of late it had been resumed, and with hopefulness. One of Cannon’s companions had emerged from confinement (due to an unconnected crime), and was ready to swear affidavits. Lastly, Mrs. Cannon had written stating that she was almost beggared, and suggesting that Hilda should lend her ten pounds towards the expenses of the affair. Hilda had not ten pounds. That very day Hilda, seeing Janet in the Nursing Home, had demanded:
human
I say Jan, I suppose you haven’t got ten pounds you can let me have for about a day or so? And had laughed self-consciously. Janet, flushing with eager pleasure, had replied:
gpt
Of course! I’ve still got that ten-pound note the poor old dad gave me. I’ve always kept it in case the worst should happen. Janet was far too affectionate to display curiosity. Hilda had posted the bank-note late at night. The next day had come a telegram from Mrs. Cannon:
human
Telegraph if you are sending money. Not for a great deal would Hilda have despatched through the hands of the old postmaster at Bursley--who had once been postmaster at Turnhill and known her parents--a telegram such as hers addressed to anybody named
gpt
Cannon.