Haldane kept his promise to spend an hour with his mother. While he told her the truth concerning his folly, he naturally tried to place his action in the best light possible. After inducing her to take some slight refreshment, he obtained a close carriage, and saw her safely on the train which would convey her to the city wherein she resided. During the interview she grew much more composed, and quite remorseful that she had not shown greater consideration for her son's feelings, and she urged and even entreated him to return home with her. He remained firm, however, in his resolution, and would receive from her only a very small sum of money, barely enough to sustain him until he could look around for employment.
His mother shared Mrs. Arnot's distrust, greatly doubting the issue of his large hopes and vague plans; but she could only assure him that her home, to which she returned crushed and disconsolate, was also his.
But he felt that return was impossible. He would rather wander to the ends of the earth than shut himself up with his mother and sisters, for he foresaw that their daily moans and repinings would be daily torture. It would be even worse to appear among his old acquaintances and companions, and be taunted with the fact that his first venture from home ended in a common jail. The plan of drifting away to parts unknown, and of partially losing his identity by changing his name, made a cold, dreary impression upon him, like the thought of annihilation, and thus his purpose of remaining in Hillaton, and winning victory on the very ground of his defeat, grew more satisfactory.
But he soon began to learn how serious, how disheartening, is the condition of one who finds society arrayed against him.
It is the fashion to inveigh against the "cold and pitiless world"; but the world has often much excuse for maintaining this character. As society is now constituted, the consequences of wrong-doing are usually terrible and greatly to be dreaded; and all who have unhealthful cravings for forbidden things should be made to realize this. Society very naturally treats harshly those who permit their pleasures and passions to endanger its very existence. People who have toilsomely and patiently erected their homes and placed therein their treasures do not tolerate with much equanimity those who appear to have no other calling than that of recklessly playing with fire. The well-to-do, conservative world has no inclination to make things pleasant for those who propose to gratify themselves at any and every cost; and if the culprit pleads, "I did not realize--I meant no great harm," the retort comes back, "But you do the harm; you endanger everything. If you have not sense or principle enough to act wisely and well, do not expect us to risk our fortunes with either fools or knaves." And the man or the woman who has preferred pleasure or passing gratification or transient advantage to that priceless possession, a good name, has little ground for complaint. If society readily condoned those grave offences which threaten chaos, thousands who are now restrained by salutary fear would act out disastrously the evil lurking in their hearts. As long as the instinct of self-preservation remains, the world will seem cold and pitiless.