Robert Stonehouse stood back against the shuttered windows of a shop
and stared at him. The sea, rushing out in some monstrous tidal wave
had left its floor littered with old wreckage, with dead, forgotten
people who stirred and lifted themselves. A grotesque, private
resurrection. . . .

The crowd around Mr. Ricardo listened in silence, not mocking him.
There were wide-eyed, haunted-looking children, and men and women not
quite sober who drifted out from the public-houses to gape heavily at
this cheaper form of entertainment. Possibly they thought he was some
missionary trying to induce them to sign the pledge. Some of them must
have known that he was mad. But even they did not laugh at him. Into
their own dark and formless thoughts there may have come the dim
realization that they, too, were misshapen and outcast. The rain
falling in long, slanting lines through the dingy lamplight seemed to
merge them into a mournful kinship.

He spoke rapidly, and for the most part the long, involved sentences
rolled themselves without meaning. But now and then something
struggled clear--a familiar phrase--an ironical echo. Then Robert
Stonehouse saw through the disfigurement to the man that had been--the
poor maimed and shackled fighter gibing and leering at his
fellow-prisoners.

"And now, my delightful and learned young friends----"

And yet he had stood up for little Robert Stonehouse in those days--had
armed him, and opened doors, and made himself into a stepping-stone to
the freedom he had never known. And had gone under. . . .