oot. I saw my life as a whole:
I followed it up from the days of childhood, when I had walked with my
father's hand, and through the self-denying toils of my professional
life, to arrive again and again, with the same sense of unreality, at
the damned horrors of the evening. I could have screamed aloud; I sought
with tears and prayers to smother down the crowd of hideous images and
sounds with which my memory swarmed against me; and still, between the
petitions, the ugly face of my iniquity stared into my soul. As the
acuteness of this remorse began to die away, it was succeeded by a
sense of joy. The problem of my conduct was solved. Hyde was thenceforth
impossible; whether I would or not, I was now confined to the better
part of my existence; and O, how I rejoiced to think of it! with what
willing humility I embraced anew the restrictions of natural life! with
what sincere renunciation I locked the door by which I had so often gone
and come, and ground the key under my heel!

The next day, came the news that the murder had not been overlooked,
that the guilt of Hyde was patent to the world, and that the victim was
a man high in public estimation. It was not only a crime, it had been a
tragic folly. I think I was glad to know it; I think I was glad to have
my better impulses thus buttressed and guarded by the terrors of the
scaffold. Jekyll was now my city of refuge; let but Hyde peep out an
instant, and the hands of all men would be raised to take and slay him.

I resolved in my future conduct to redeem the past; and I can say with
honesty that my resolve was fruitful of some good. You know yourself how
earnestly, in the last months of the last year, I laboured to relieve
suffering; you know that much was done for others, and that the days
passed quietly, almost happily for myself. Nor can I truly say that I
wearied of this beneficent and innocent life; I think instead that I
daily enjoyed it more completely; but I was still cursed with my duality
of purpose; and as the first edge of my penitence wore off, the lower
side of me, so long indulged, so recently chained down, began to growl
for licence. Not that I dreamed of resuscitating Hyde; the bare idea of
that would startle me to frenzy: no, it was in my own person that I
was once more tempted to trifle with my conscience; and it was as
an ordinary secret sinner that I at last fell before the assaults of
temptation.

There comes an end to all things; the most capac