He was a young man whose lack of self-control, first of his appetites, then of his temper, had led him from rape to the situation of murder which he now faced. Curiously, it was the beatings for which Monk could not forgive him. They, of all the crimes, seemed a gratuitous exercise of cruelty. Nevertheless he would try, for Hester's sake. He had said he would, perhaps in the emotion of the moment, and now he was bound. Still, as he set out from St. Giles, it was more at the edge of his mind than the centre. He could not rid himself of the memory of the expression of contempt he had seen in the eyes of the people who had known him before, and liked Runcorn better, felt sorry for him in the exchange. Runcorn, as he was now, irritated Monk like a constant abrasion to the skin. He was pompous, small-minded, self-serving. But perhaps he had not always been like that. It was imaginable that whatever had happened between them had contributed to a warping of his original nature.
