to find it. Leave the refugee alone! Laugh at him, distrust him, open your eyes in wonder at that secret self which smoulders in him, sometimes under the everyday respectability and tranquillity of a man like me⁠—sometimes under the grinding poverty, the fierce squalor, of men less lucky, less pliable, less patient than I am⁠—but judge us not! In the time of your first Charles you might have done us justice⁠—the long luxury of your own freedom has made you incapable of doing us justice now.”

All the deepest feelings of his nature seemed to force themselves to the surface in those words⁠—all his heart was poured out to me for the first time in our lives⁠—but still his voice never rose, still his dread of the terrible revelation he was making to me never left him.