“Is it then wrong for a man to do right?  Is it ever right to do wrong?” he said finally.  “Should I have had my fling and never have cared and never have spoken?  Is there a true place for deception in the world?  May our hypocrisy with each other be a virtue?  If you have done evil, shall you live the whited sepulchre?  Ah, Isabel, how easily I could have deceived you!  Does a woman care what a man may have done, if he be not found out?  Is not her highest ideal for him a profitable reputation, not a spotless character?  No, I will not wrong you by these thoughts.  It was you who said to me that you once loved all that you saw in me, and believed that you saw everything.  All that you asked of me was truthfulness that had no sorrow.”

He reached the top of the stairs and began to feel his way toward his room.

“To have one chance in life, in eternity, for a white name, and to lose it!”

VIII

Autumn and winter had passed.  Another spring was nearly gone.  One Monday morning of that May, the month of new growths and of old growths with new starting-points on them, Ambrose Webb was walking to and fro across the fresh oilcloth in his short hall; the front door and the back door stood wide open, as though to indicate the receptivity of his nature in opposite directions; all the windows were wide open, as though to bring out of doors into his house:  he was much more used to the former; during married life the open had been more friendly than the interior.  But he was now also master of the interior and had been for nearly a year.

Some men succeed best as partial automata, as dogs for instance that can be highly trained to pull little domestic carts.  Ambrose had grown used to pulling his cart:  he had expected to pull it for the rest of his days; and now the cart had suddenly broken down behind him and he was left standing in the middle of the long life-road.  But liberty was too large a destiny for a mind of that order; the rod of empire does not fit such hands; it was intolerable to Ambrose that he was in a world where he could do as he pleased.

On this courageous Monday, therefore,—­whatsoever he was to do during the week he always decided on Mondays,—­after months of irresolution he finally determined to make a second dash for slavery.  But he meant to be canny; this time he would choose a woman who, if she ruled him, would not misrule him; what he could stand was a sovereign, not a despot, and he believed that he had found this exceptionally gifted and exceptionally moderated being:  it was Miss Anna Hardage.

From the day of Miss Anna’s discovery that Ambrose had a dominating consort, she had been, she had declared she should be, much kinder to him.  When his wife died, Miss Anna had been kinder still.  Affliction present, affliction past, her sympathy had not failed him.