Chapter 27

by William Dean Howells

　　"No, no, my dear," he argued; "merely imaginative. And I can evenimagine that little thing finding Tom just the least bit slow, attimes, if it were not for his goodness. Tom is so kind that I'mconvinced he sometimes feels your joke in his heart when his head isn'tquite clear about it. Well, we will not despond, my dear.""Your father seemed actually to like her," Mrs. Corey reported to herdaughters, very much shaken in her own prejudices by the fact. If thegirl were not so offensive to his fastidiousness, there might be somehope that she was not so offensive as Mrs. Corey had thought. "Iwonder how she will strike YOU," she concluded, looking from onedaughter to another, as if trying to decide which of them would likePenelope least.Irene's return and the visit of the Coreys formed a distraction for theLaphams in which their impending troubles seemed to hang further aloof;but it was only one of those reliefs which mark the course ofadversity, and it was not one of the cheerful reliefs. At any othertime, either incident would have been an anxiety and care for Mrs.Lapham which she would have found hard to bear; but now she almostwelcomed them. At the end of three days Lapham returned, and his wifemet him as if nothing unusual had marked their parting; she reservedher atonement for a fitter time; he would know now from the way sheacted that she felt all right towards him. He took very little note ofher manner, but met his family with an austere quiet that puzzled her,and a sort of pensive dignity that refined his rudeness to an effectthat sometimes comes to such natures after long sickness, when theanimal strength has been taxed and lowered. He sat silent with her atthe table after their girls had left them alone, and seeing that he didnot mean to speak, she began to explain why Irene had come home, and topraise her."Yes, she done right," said Lapham. "It was time for her to come," headded gently.Then he was silent again, and his wife told him of Corey's having beenthere, and of his father's and mother's calling. "I guess Pen'sconcluded to make it up," she said."Well, we'll see about that," said Lapham; and now she could no longerforbear to ask him about his affairs."I don't know as I've got any right to know anything about it," shesaid humbly, with remote allusion to her treatment of him. "But Ican't help wanting to know. How ARE things going, Si?""Bad," he said, pushing his plate from him, and tilting himself back inhis chair. "Or they ain't going at all. They've stopped.""What do you mean, Si?" she persisted, tenderly."I've got to the end of my string. To-morrow I shall call a meeting ofmy creditors, and put myself in their hands. If there's enough left tosatisfy them, I'm satisfied." His voice dropped in his throat; heswallowed once or twice, and then did not speak."Do you mean that it's all over with you?" she asked fearfully.He bowed his big head, wrinkled and grizzled; and after awhile he said,"It's hard to realise it; but I guess there ain't any doubt about it."He drew a long breath, and then he explained to her about the WestVirginia people, and how he had got an extension of the first time theyhad given him, and had got a man to go up to Lapham with him and lookat the works,--a man that had turned up in New York, and wanted to putmoney in the business. His money would have enabled Lapham to closewith the West Virginians. "The devil was in it, right straight along,"said Lapham. "All I had to do was to keep quiet about that othercompany. It was Rogers and his property right over again. He likedthe look of things, and he wanted to go into the business, and he hadthe money--plenty; it would have saved me with those West Virginiafolks. But I had to tell him how I stood. I had to tell him all aboutit, and what I wanted to do. He began to back water in a minute, andthe next morning I saw that it was up with him. He's gone back to NewYork. I've lost my last chance. Now all I've got to do is to save thepieces.""Will--will--everything go?" she asked."I can't tell, yet. But they shall have a chance at everything--everydollar, every cent. I'm sorry for you, Persis--and the girls.""Oh, don't talk of US!" She was trying to realise that the simple, rudesoul to which her heart clove in her youth, but which she had put tosuch cruel proof, with her unsparing conscience and her unsparingtongue, had been equal to its ordeals, and had come out unscathed andunstained. He was able in his talk to make so little of them; hehardly seemed to see what they were; he was apparently not proud ofthem, and certainly not glad; if they were victories of any sort, hebore them with the patience of defeat. His wife wished to praise him,but she did not know how; so she offered him a little reproach, inwhich alone she touched the cause of her behaviour at parting."Silas," she asked, after a long gaze at him, "why didn't you tell meyou had Jim Millon's girl there?""I didn't suppose you'd like it, Persis," he answered. "I did intendto tell you at first, but then I put--I put it off. I thought you'dcome round some day, and find it out for yourself.""I'm punished," said his wife, "for not taking enough interest in yourbusiness to even come near it. If we're brought back to the day ofsmall things, I guess it's a lesson for me, Silas.""Oh, I don't know about the lesson," he said wearily.That night she showed him the anonymous scrawl which had kindled herfury against him. He turned it listlessly over in his hand. "I guessI know who it's from," he said, giving it back to her, "and I guess youdo too, Persis.""But how--how could he----""Mebbe he believed it," said Lapham, with patience that cut her morekeenly than any reproach. "YOU did."Perhaps because the process of his ruin had been so gradual, perhapsbecause the excitement of preceding events had exhausted their capacityfor emotion, the actual consummation of his bankruptcy brought arelief, a repose to Lapham and his family, rather than a freshsensation of calamity. In the shadow of his disaster they returned tosomething like their old, united life; they were at least all togetheragain; and it will be intelligible to those whom life has blessed withvicissitude, that Lapham should come home the evening after he hadgiven up everything, to his creditors, and should sit down to hissupper so cheerful that Penelope could joke him in the old way, andtell him that she thought from his looks they had concluded to pay hima hundred cents on every dollar he owed them.As James Bellingham had taken so much interest in his troubles from thefirst, Lapham thought he ought to tell him, before taking the finalstep, just how things stood with him, and what ho meant to do.Bellingham made some futile inquiries about his negotiations with theWest Virginians, and Lapham told him they had come to nothing. Hespoke of the New York man, and the chance that he might have sold outhalf his business to him. "But, of course, I had to let him know howit was about those fellows.""Of course," said Bellingham, not seeing till afterwards the fullsignificance of Lapham's action.Lapham said nothing about Rogers and the Englishmen. He believed thathe had acted right in that matter, and he was satisfied; but he did notcare to have Bellingham, or anybody, perhaps, think he had been a fool.All those who were concerned in his affairs said he behaved well, andeven more than well, when it came to the worst. The prudence, the goodsense, which he had shown in the first years of his success, and ofwhich his great prosperity seemed to have bereft him, came back, andthese qualities, used in his own behalf, commended him as much to hiscreditors as the anxiety he showed that no one should suffer by him;this even made some of them doubtful of his sincerity. They gave himtime, and there would have been no trouble in his resuming on the oldbasis, if the ground had not been cut from under him by the competitionof the West Virginia company. He saw himself that it was useless totry to go on in the old way, and he preferred to go back and begin theworld anew where he had first begun it, in the hills at Lapham. He putthe house at Nankeen Square, with everything else he had, into thepayment of his debts, and Mrs. Lapham found it easier to leave it forthe old farmstead in Vermont than it would have been to go from thathome of many years to the new house on the water side of Beacon. Thisthing and that is embittered to us, so that we may be willing torelinquish it; the world, life itself, is embittered to most of us, sothat we are glad to have done with them at last; and this home washaunted with such memories to each of those who abandoned it that to gowas less exile than escape. Mrs. Lapham could not look into Irene'sroom without seeing the girl there before her glass, tearing the poorlittle keep-sakes of her hapless fancy from their hiding-places to takethem and fling them in passionate renunciation upon her sister; shecould not come into the sitting-room, where her little ones had grownup, without starting at the thought of her husband sitting so manyweary nights at his desk there, trying to fight his way back to hopeout of the ruin into which he was slipping. When she remembered thatnight when Rogers came, she hated the place. Irene accepted herrelease from the house eagerly, and was glad to go before and preparefor the family at Lapham. Penelope was always ashamed of herengagement there; it must seem better somewhere else and she was gladto go too. No one but Lapham in fact, felt the pang of parting in allits keenness. Whatever regret the others had was softened to them bythe likeness of their flitting to many of those removals for the summerwhich they made in the late spring when they left Nankeen Square; theywere going directly into the country instead of to the seaside first;but Lapham, who usually remained in town long after they had gone, knewall the difference. For his nerves there was no mechanical sense ofcoming back; this was as much the end of his proud, prosperous life asdeath itself could have been. He was returning to begin life anew, buthe knew as well as he knew that he should not find his vanished youthin his native hills, that it could never again be the triumph that ithad been. That was impossible, not only in his stiffened and weakenedforces, but in the very nature of things. He was going back, by graceof the man whom he owed money, to make what he could out of the onechance which his successful rivals had left him.In one phase his paint had held its own against bad times and ruinouscompetition, and it was with the hope of doing still more with thePersis Brand that he now set himself to work. The West Virginia peopleconfessed that they could not produce those fine grades, and theywillingly left the field to him. A strange, not ignoble friendlinessexisted between Lapham and the three brothers; they had used himfairly; it was their facilities that had conquered him, not theirill-will; and he recognised in them without enmity the necessity towhich he had yielded. If he succeeded in his efforts to develop hispaint in this direction, it must be for a long time on a small scalecompared with his former business, which it could never equal, and hebrought to them the flagging energies of an elderly man. He was morebroken than he knew by his failure; it did not kill, as it often does,but it weakened the spring once so strong and elastic. He lapsed moreand more into acquiescence with his changed condition, and thatbragging note of his was rarely sounded. He worked faithfully enoughin his enterprise, but sometimes he failed to seize occasions that inhis younger days he would have turned to golden account. His wife sawin him a daunted look that made her heart ache for him.One result of his friendly relations with the West Virginia people wasthat Corey went in with them, and the fact that he did so solely uponLapham's advice, and by means of his recommendation, was perhaps theColonel's proudest consolation. Corey knew the business thoroughly,and after half a year at Kanawha Falls and in the office at New York,he went out to Mexico and Central America, to see what could be donefor them upon the ground which he had theoretically studied with Lapham.Before he went he came up to Vermont, and urged Penelope to go withhim. He was to be first in the city of Mexico, and if his mission wassuccessful he was to be kept there and in South America several years,watching the new railroad enterprises and the development of mechanicalagriculture and whatever other undertakings offered an opening for theintroduction of the paint. They were all young men together, andCorey, who had put his money into the company, had a proprietaryinterest in the success which they were eager to achieve."There's no more reason now and no less than ever there was," musedPenelope, in counsel with her mother, "why I should say Yes, or why Ishould say No. Everything else changes, but this is just where it was ayear ago. It don't go backward, and it don't go forward. Mother, Ibelieve I shall take the bit in my teeth--if anybody will put it there!""It isn't the same as it was," suggested her mother. "You can see thatIrene's all over it.""That's no credit to me," said Penelope. "I ought to be just as muchashamed as ever.""You no need ever to be ashamed.""That's true, too," said the girl. "And I can sneak off to Mexico witha good conscience if I could make up my mind to it." She laughed."Well, if I could be SENTENCED to be married, or somebody would up andforbid the banns! I don't know what to do about it."Her mother left her to carry her hesitation back to Corey, and she saidnow, they had better go all over it and try to reason it out. "And Ihope that whatever I do, it won't be for my own sake, but for--others!"Corey said he was sure of that, and looked at her with eyes of patienttenderness."I don't say it is wrong," she proceeded, rather aimlessly, "but Ican't make it seem right. I don't know whether I can make youunderstand, but the idea of being happy, when everybody else is somiserable, is more than I can endure. It makes me wretched.""Then perhaps that's your share of the common suffering," suggestedCorey, smiling."Oh, you know it isn't! You know it's nothing. Oh! One of the reasonsis what I told you once before, that as long as father is in trouble Ican't let you think of me. Now that he's lost everything--?" She benther eyes inquiringly upon him, as if for the effect of this argument."I don't think that's a very good reason," he answered seriously, butsmiling still. "Do you believe me when I tell you that I love you?""Why, I suppose I must," she said, dropping her eyes."Then why shouldn't I think all the more of you on account of yourfather's loss? You didn't suppose I cared for you because he wasprosperous?"There was a shade of reproach, ever so delicate and gentle, in hissmiling question, which she felt."No, I couldn't think such a thing of you. I--I don't know what Imeant. I meant that----" She could not go on and say that she had feltherself more worthy of him because of her father's money; it would nothave been true; yet there was no other explanation. She stopped, andcast a helpless glance at him.He came to her aid. "I understand why you shouldn't wish me to sufferby your father's misfortunes.""Yes, that was it; and there is too great a difference every way. Weought to look at that again. You mustn't pretend that you don't knowit, for that wouldn't be true. Your mother will never like me, andperhaps--perhaps I shall not like her.""Well," said Corey, a little daunted, "you won't have to marry myfamily.""Ah, that isn't the point!""I know it," he admitted. "I won't pretend that I don't see what youmean; but I'm sure that all the differences would disappear when youcame to know my family better. I'm not afraid but you and my motherwill like each other--she can't help it!" he exclaimed, less judiciallythan he had hitherto spoken, and he went on to urge some points ofdoubtful tenability. "We have our ways, and you have yours; and whileI don't say but what you and my mother and sisters would be a littlestrange together at first, it would soon wear off, on both sides.There can't be anything hopelessly different in you all, and if therewere it wouldn't be any difference to me.""Do you think it would be pleasant to have you on my side against yourmother?""There won't be any sides. Tell me just what it is you're afraid of.""Afraid?""Thinking of, then.""I don't know. It isn't anything they say or do," she explained, withher eyes intent on his. "It's what they are. I couldn't be naturalwith them, and if I can't be natural with people, I'm disagreeable.""Can you be natural with me?""Oh, I'm not afraid of you. I never was. That was the trouble, fromthe beginning.""Well, then, that's all that's necessary. And it never was the leasttrouble to me!""It made me untrue to Irene.""You mustn't say that! You were always true to her.""She cared for you first.""Well, but I never cared for her at all!" he besought her."She thought you did.""That was nobody's fault, and I can't let you make it yours. Mydear----""Wait. We must understand each other," said Penelope, rising from herseat to prevent an advance he was making from his; "I want you torealise the whole affair. Should you want a girl who hadn't a cent inthe world, and felt different in your mother's company, and had cheatedand betrayed her own sister?""I want you!""Very well, then, you can't have me. I should always despise myself.I ought to give you up for all these reasons. Yes, I must." She lookedat him intently, and there was a tentative quality in her affirmations."Is this your answer?" he said. "I must submit. If I asked too muchof you, I was wrong. And--good-bye."He held out his hand, and she put hers in it. "You think I'mcapricious and fickle!" she said. "I can't help it--I don't knowmyself. I can't keep to one thing for half a day at a time. But it'sright for us to part--yes, it must be. It must be," she repeated; "andI shall try to remember that. Good-bye! I will try to keep that in mymind, and you will too--you won't care, very soon! I didn't meanTHAT--no; I know how true you are; but you will soon look at medifferently; and see that even IF there hadn't been this about Irene, Iwas not the one for you. You do think so, don't you?" she pleaded,clinging to his hand. "I am not at all what they would like--yourfamily; I felt that. I am little, and black, and homely, and theydon't understand my way of talking, and now that we've losteverything--No, I'm not fit. Good-bye. You're quite right, not to havepatience with me any longer. I've tried you enough. I ought to bewilling to marry you against their wishes if you want me to, but Ican't make the sacrifice--I'm too selfish for that----" All at once sheflung herself on his breast. "I can't even give you up! I shall neverdare look any one in the face again. Go, go! But take me with you! Itried to do without you! I gave it a fair trial, and it was a deadfailure. O poor Irene! How could she give you up?"Corey went back to Boston immediately, and left Penelope, as he must,to tell her sister that they were to be married. She was spared fromthe first advance toward this by an accident or a misunderstanding.Irene came straight to her after Corey was gone, and demanded,"Penelope Lapham, have you been such a ninny as to send that man awayon my account?"Penelope recoiled from this terrible courage; she did not answerdirectly, and Irene went on, "Because if you did, I'll thank you tobring him back again. I'm not going to have him thinking that I'mdying for a man that never cared for me. It's insulting, and I'm notgoing to stand it. Now, you just send for him!""Oh, I will, 'Rene," gasped Penelope. And then she added, shamed outof her prevarication by Irene's haughty magnanimity, "I have. Thatis--he's coming back----"Irene looked at her a moment, and then, whatever thought was in hermind, said fiercely, "Well!" and left her to her dismay--her dismay andher relief, for they both knew that this was the last time they shouldever speak of that again.The marriage came after so much sorrow and trouble, and the fact wasreceived with so much misgiving for the past and future, that itbrought Lapham none of the triumph in which he had once exulted at thethought of an alliance with the Coreys. Adversity had so far been hisfriend that it had taken from him all hope of the social success forwhich people crawl and truckle, and restored him, through failure anddoubt and heartache, the manhood which his prosperity had so nearlystolen from him. Neither he nor his wife thought now that theirdaughter was marrying a Corey; they thought only that she was givingherself to the man who loved her, and their acquiescence was soberedstill further by the presence of Irene. Their hearts were far morewith her.Again and again Mrs. Lapham said she did not see how she could gothrough it. "I can't make it seem right," she said."It IS right," steadily answered the Colonel."Yes, I know. But it don't SEEM so."It would be easy to point out traits in Penelope's character whichfinally reconciled all her husband's family and endeared her to them.These things continually happen in novels; and the Coreys, as they hadalways promised themselves to do, made the best, and not the worst ofTom's marriage.They were people who could value Lapham's behaviour as Tom reported itto them. They were proud of him, and Bromfield Corey, who found adelicate, aesthetic pleasure in the heroism with which Lapham hadwithstood Rogers and his temptations--something finely dramatic andunconsciously effective,--wrote him a letter which would once haveflattered the rough soul almost to ecstasy, though now he affected toslight it in showing it. "It's all right if it makes it morecomfortable for Pen," he said to his wife.But the differences remained uneffaced, if not uneffaceable, betweenthe Coreys and Tom Corey's wife. "If he had only married the Colonel!"subtly suggested Nanny Corey.There was a brief season of civility and forbearance on both sides,when he brought her home before starting for Mexico, and herfather-in-law made a sympathetic feint of liking Penelope's way oftalking, but it is questionable if even he found it so delightful asher husband did. Lily Corey made a little, ineffectual sketch of her,which she put by with other studies to finish up, sometime, and foundher rather picturesque in some ways. Nanny got on with her better thanthe rest, and saw possibilities for her in the country to which she wasgoing. "As she's quite unformed, socially," she explained to hermother, "there is a chance that she will form herself on the Spanishmanner, if she stays there long enough, and that when she comes backshe will have the charm of, not olives, perhaps, but tortillas,whatever they are: something strange and foreign, even if it'sborrowed. I'm glad she's going to Mexico. At that distance wecan--correspond."Her mother sighed, and said bravely that she was sure they all got onvery pleasantly as it was, and that she was perfectly satisfied if Tomwas.There was, in fact, much truth in what she said of their harmony withPenelope. Having resolved, from the beginning, to make the best of theworst, it might almost be said that they were supported and consoled intheir good intentions by a higher power. This marriage had not, thanksto an over-ruling Providence, brought the succession of Lapham teasupon Bromfield Corey which he had dreaded; the Laphams were far off intheir native fastnesses, and neither Lily nor Nanny Corey was obligedto sacrifice herself to the conversation of Irene; they were not evencalled upon to make a social demonstration for Penelope at a time when,most people being still out of town, it would have been so easy; sheand Tom had both begged that there might be nothing of that kind; andthough none of the Coreys learned to know her very well in the week shespent with them, they did not find it hard to get on with her. Therewere even moments when Nanny Corey, like her father, had glimpses ofwhat Tom had called her humour, but it was perhaps too unlike their ownto be easily recognisable.Whether Penelope, on her side, found it more difficult to harmonise, Icannot say. She had much more of the harmonising to do, since theywere four to one; but then she had gone through so much greater trialsbefore. When the door of their carriage closed and it drove off withher and her husband to the station, she fetched a long sigh."What is it?" asked Corey, who ought to have known better."Oh, nothing. I don't think I shall feel strange amongst the Mexicansnow."He looked at her with a puzzled smile, which grew a little graver, andthen he put his arm round her and drew her closer to him. This madeher cry on his shoulder. "I only meant that I should have you all tomyself." There is no proof that she meant more, but it is certain thatour manners and customs go for more in life than our qualities. Theprice that we pay for civilisation is the fine yet impassabledifferentiation of these. Perhaps we pay too much; but it will not bepossible to persuade those who have the difference in their favour thatthis is so. They may be right; and at any rate, the blank misgiving,the recurring sense of disappointment to which the young people'sdeparture left the Coreys is to be considered. That was the end oftheir son and brother for them; they felt that; and they were not meanor unamiable people.He remained three years away. Some changes took place in that time.One of these was the purchase by the Kanawha Falls Company of the minesand works at Lapham. The transfer relieved Lapham of the load of debtwhich he was still labouring under, and gave him an interest in thevaster enterprise of the younger men, which he had once vainly hoped tograsp all in his own hand. He began to tell of this coincidence assomething very striking; and pushing on more actively the specialbranch of the business left to him, he bragged, quite in his old way,of its enormous extension. His son-in-law, he said, was pushing it inMexico and Central America: an idea that they had originally had incommon. Well, young blood was what was wanted in a thing of that kind.Now, those fellows out in West Virginia: all young, and a perfect team!For himself, he owned that he had made mistakes; he could see justwhere the mistakes were--put his finger right on them. But one thinghe could say: he had been no man's enemy but his own; every dollar,every cent had gone to pay his debts; he had come out with clean hands.He said all this, and much more, to Mr. Sewell the summer after he soldout, when the minister and his wife stopped at Lapham on their wayacross from the White Mountains to Lake Champlain; Lapham had foundthem on the cars, and pressed them to stop off.There were times when Mrs. Lapham had as great pride in theclean-handedness with which Lapham had come out as he had himself, buther satisfaction was not so constant. At those times, knowing thetemptations he had resisted, she thought him the noblest and grandestof men; but no woman could endure to live in the same house with aperfect hero, and there were other times when she reminded him that ifhe had kept his word to her about speculating in stocks, and had lookedafter the insurance of his property half as carefully as he had lookedafter a couple of worthless women who had no earthly claim on him, theywould not be where they were now. He humbly admitted it all, and lefther to think of Rogers herself. She did not fail to do so, and thethought did not fail to restore him to her tenderness again.I do not know how it is that clergymen and physicians keep from tellingtheir wives the secrets confided to them; perhaps they can trust theirwives to find them out for themselves whenever they wish. Sewell hadlaid before his wife the case of the Laphams after they came to consultwith him about Corey's proposal to Penelope, for he wished to beconfirmed in his belief that he had advised them soundly; but he hadnot given her their names, and he had not known Corey's himself. Nowhe had no compunctions in talking the affair over with her without theveil of ignorance which she had hitherto assumed, for she declared thatas soon as she heard of Corey's engagement to Penelope, the whole thinghad flashed upon her. "And that night at dinner I could have told thechild that he was in love with her sister by the way he talked abouther; I heard him; and if she had not been so blindly in love with himherself, she would have known it too. I must say, I can't help feelinga sort of contempt for her sister.""Oh, but you must not!" cried Sewell. "That is wrong, cruelly wrong.I'm sure that's out of your novel-reading, my dear, and not out of yourheart. Come! It grieves me to hear you say such a thing as that.""Oh, I dare say this pretty thing has got over it--how much charactershe has got!--and I suppose she'll see somebody else."Sewell had to content himself with this partial concession. As amatter of fact, unless it was the young West Virginian who had come onto arrange the purchase of the Works, Irene had not yet seen any one,and whether there was ever anything between them is a fact that wouldneed a separate inquiry. It is certain that at the end of five yearsafter the disappointment which she met so bravely, she was stillunmarried. But she was even then still very young, and her life atLapham had been varied by visits to the West. It had also been variedby an invitation, made with the politest resolution by Mrs. Corey, tovisit in Boston, which the girl was equal to refusing in the samespirit.Sewell was intensely interested in the moral spectacle which Laphampresented under his changed conditions. The Colonel, who was more theColonel in those hills than he could ever have been on the Back Bay,kept him and Mrs. Sewell over night at his house; and he showed theminister minutely round the Works and drove him all over his farm. Forthis expedition he employed a lively colt which had not yet come ofage, and an open buggy long past its prime, and was no more ashamed ofhis turnout than of the finest he had ever driven on the Milldam. Hewas rather shabby and slovenly in dress, and he had fallen unkempt,after the country fashion, as to his hair and beard and boots. Thehouse was plain, and was furnished with the simpler moveables out ofthe house in Nankeen Square. There were certainly all the necessaries,but no luxuries unless the statues of Prayer and Faith might be soconsidered. The Laphams now burned kerosene, of course, and they hadno furnace in the winter; these were the only hardships the Colonelcomplained of; but he said that as soon as the company got to payingdividends again,--he was evidently proud of the outlays that for thepresent prevented this,--he should put in steam heat and naphtha-gas.He spoke freely of his failure, and with a confidence that seemedinspired by his former trust in Sewell, whom, indeed, he treated likean intimate friend, rather than an acquaintance of two or threemeetings. He went back to his first connection with Rogers, and he putbefore Sewell hypothetically his own conclusions in regard to thematter."Sometimes," he said, "I get to thinking it all over, and it seems tome I done wrong about Rogers in the first place; that the whole troublecame from that. It was just like starting a row of bricks. I tried tocatch up and stop 'em from going, but they all tumbled, one afteranother. It wa'n't in the nature of things that they could be stoppedtill the last brick went. I don't talk much with my wife, any moreabout it; but I should like to know how it strikes you.""We can trace the operation of evil in the physical world," replied theminister, "but I'm more and more puzzled about it in the moral world.There its course is often so very obscure; and often it seems toinvolve, so far as we can see, no penalty whatever. And in your owncase, as I understand, you don't admit--you don't feel sure--that youever actually did wrong this man----""Well, no; I don't. That is to say----"He did not continue, and after a while Sewell said, with that subtlekindness of his, "I should be inclined to think--nothing can be thrownquite away; and it can't be that our sins only weaken us--that yourfear of having possibly behaved selfishly toward this man kept you onyour guard, and strengthened you when you were brought face to facewith a greater"--he was going to say temptation, but he saved Lapham'spride, and said--"emergency.""Do you think so?""I think that there may be truth in what I suggest.""Well, I don't know what it was," said Lapham; "all I know is that whenit came to the point, although I could see that I'd got to go underunless I did it--that I couldn't sell out to those Englishmen, and Icouldn't let that man put his money into my business without I told himjust how things stood."