As for repenting , bah ! Who 'd believe that I really repented , who 'd give me a second chance on the faith of it ? Not a soul . Repentance wo n't blot out the past . It wo n't give me back my wife whom I loved above everything on earth and whose heart I broke . It wo n't restore me my unstained name and my right to a place among honourable men . There 's no chance for a man who has fallen as low as I have . If Emily were living , I could struggle for her sake . But who 'd be fool enough to attempt such a fight with no motive and not one chance of success in a hundred . Not I. I 'm down and I 'll stay down . There 's no climbing up again . '' He celebrated his first day of freedom by getting drunk , although he had never before been an intemperate man . Then , when the effects of the debauch wore off , he took the train for Alliston ; he would go home and see little Joey once . Nobody at the station where he alighted recognized him or paid any attention to him . He was as a dead man who had come back to life to find himself effaced from recollection and his place knowing him no more . It was three miles from the station to where his sister lived , and he resolved to walk the distance . Now that the critical moment drew near , he shrank from it and wished to put it off as long as he could . When he reached his sister 's home he halted on the road and surveyed the place over its snug respectability of iron fence . His courage failed him at the thought of walking over that trim lawn and knocking at that closed front door . He would slip around by the back way ; perhaps , who knew , he might come upon Joey without running the gauntlet of his sister 's cold , offended eyes .
If he might only find the boy and talk to him XXXXX a little while without betraying his identity , meet his son 's clear gaze without the danger of finding scorn or fear in it -- his heart beat high at the thought .
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