Already he thought of much which he would gladly have said, and
blamed his want of presence of mind; but, after all, it mattered very
little. Inclined though he was to make very great allowances for his
father and mother, he was indignant at their having thrust themselves
upon him without warning at a moment when the excitement of leaving
prison was already as much as he was fit for. It was a mean advantage to
have taken over him, but he was glad they had taken it, for it made him
realise more fully than ever that his one chance lay in separating
himself completely from them.
The morning was grey, and the first signs of winter fog were beginning to
show themselves, for it was now the 30th of September. Ernest wore the
clothes in which he had entered prison, and was therefore dressed as a
clergyman. No one who looked at him would have seen any difference
between his present appearance and his appearance six months previously;
indeed, as he walked slowly through the dingy crowded lane called Eyre
Street Hill (which he well knew, for he had clerical friends in that
neighbourhood), the months he had passed in prison seemed to drop out of
his life, and so powerfully did association carry him away that, finding
himself in his old dress and in his old surroundings, he felt dragged
back into his old self--as though his six months of prison life had been
a dream from which he was now waking to take things up as he had left
them.
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