Do what he would, he could not get those shares out of his mind; they had entered like iron into his soul, as poison into his blood; they might still rise, they might yet become of vast value, might pay all his debts, and enable him to begin again.

And then this had been a committee day; he had had no means of knowing how things had gone there, of learning the opinions of the members, of whispering to Mr.Piles, or hearing the law on the matter laid down by the heavy deep voice of the great Mr.Blocks.And so he went on thinking, thinking, thinking, but ever as though he had a clock-weight fixed to his heart and pulling at its strings.

For, after all, what were the shares or the committee to him?
Let the shares rise to ever so fabulous a value, let the Chancellor of the Exchequer be ever so complaisant in giving away his money, what avail would it be to him?
what avail now?
He must stand his trial for the crime of which he had been guilty.
With the utmost patience Gertrude endeavoured to soothe him, and to bring his mind into some temper in which it could employ itself.

She brought him their baby, thinking that he would play with his child, but all that he said was--'My poor boy! I have ruined him already;' and then turning away from the infant, he thrust his hands deep into his trousers-pockets, and went on calculating about the shares.
When the sun had well set, and the daylight had, at last, dwindled out, he took up his hat and wandered out among the new streets and rows of houses which lay between his own house and the Western Railway.

He got into a district in which he had never been before, and as he walked about here, he thought of the fate of other such swindlers as himself;--yes, though he did not speak the word, he pronounced it as plainly, and as often, in the utterance of his mind, as though it was being rung out to him from every steeple in London; he thought of the fate of such swindlers as himself; how one had been found dead in the streets, poisoned by himself; how another, after facing the cleverest lawyers in the land, was now dying in a felon's prison; how a third had vainly endeavoured to fly from justice by aid of wigs, false whiskers, painted furrows, and other disguises.