Yet he could not take his sorrow and care in the natural manner.

He was obliged to think how every word and deed would be construed.

He fancied that people were watching him with suspicious eyes, when nothing was further from their thoughts.

For once let the "public" of any place be possessed by an idea, it is more difficult to dislodge it than any one imagines who has not tried.

If Mr.
Wilkins had gone into Hamley market-place, and proclaimed himself guilty of the manslaughter of Mr.Dunster--nay, if he had detailed all the circumstances--the people would have exclaimed, "Poor man, he is crazed by this discovery of the unworthiness of the man he trusted so; and no wonder--it was such a thing to have done--to have defrauded his partner to such an extent, and then have made off to America!" For many small circumstances, which I do not stop to detail here, went far to prove this, as we know, unfounded supposition; and Mr.Wilkins, who was known, from his handsome boyhood, through his comely manhood, up to the present time, by all the people in Hamley, was an object of sympathy and respect to every one who saw him, as he passed by, old, and lorn, and haggard before his time, all through the evil conduct of one, London-bred, who was as a hard, unlovely stranger to the popular mind of this little country town.
Mr.Wilkins's own servants liked him.