True, the lesson sometimes went too far; and he thought with anxiety of
the Surry Hills affair, in which, through an accident, a neighbouring push
had disappeared like rats into a hole, branded with murder. The ugly word
hung on his tongue and paralysed his thoughts. His mind recoiled with
terror as he saw where his lawless ways had carried him, feeling already
branded with the mark of Cain, which the instinct of the people has
singled out as the unpardonable crime, destroying the life that cannot
be renewed. And suddenly he began to persuade himself that the man's
injuries were not serious, that he would soon recover; for it was
wonderful the knocking about a man could stand.

He turned on himself with amazement. Why was he twittering like an old
woman? Quarrels, fights, and bloodshed were as familiar to him as his
daily bread. With a sudden cry of astonishment he remembered the baby.
The affair of the bricklayer had driven it completely out of his mind.
His thoughts returned to Cardigan Street. He remembered the quiet room
dimly lit with a candle, the dolorous cry of the infant, and the
intoxicating touch of its frail body in his arms.

His amazement increased. What had possessed him to take the brat in his
arms and nurse it? His lips contracted in a cynical grin as he remembered
the figure he cut when Chook appeared. He decided to look on the affair
as a joke. But again his thoughts returned to the child, and he was
surprised with a vibration of tenderness sweet as honey in his veins.
A strange yearning came over him like a physical weakness for the touch
of his son's body.

His eye caught his shadow on the wall, grotesque and forbidding; the
large head, bunched beneath the square shoulders, thrust outwards in a
hideous lump. Monster and outcast was he? Well, he would show them that