Like children at play, they did not perceive the narrow
boundaries which separate indulgence from licentiousness; and in the
hurried excitement of the mood, inspired by the one habit, they had
passed at once, unthinkingly and unconsciously, into the excesses of the
other. They now beheld the event in its true colors, and there were but
few among the squatters not sadly doubtful upon the course taken, and
suffering corresponding dismay from its probable consequences. To a few,
such as Munro and Rivers, the aspect of the thing was unchanged--they
had beheld its true features from the outset, and knew the course, and
defied the consequences. They had already made up their minds upon
it--had regarded the matter in all its phases, and suffered no surprise
accordingly. Not so with the rest--with Forrester in particular, whose
mental distress, though borne with manliness, was yet most distressing.
He stood apart, saying nothing, yet lamenting inwardly, with the
self-upbraidings of an agonized spirit, the easy facility with which he
had been won, by the cunning of others, into the perpetration of a crime
so foul.
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