The explanation, I am bound to say, was one that half the world considers valid; it was one that squeezed through the courts.  And when it was done, and the whole thing had blown over, who cared?  There were some bondholders who said that it was rascally, that they had been boldly swindled.  In the clubs, long after, you would hear it said that Hollowell and Henderson were awfully sharp, and hard to beat.  It is a very bad business, said the Brandon parliament, and it just shows that the whole country is losing its moral sense, its capacity to judge what is right and what is wrong.

I do not say that this explanation, the nature of which I have only indicated, would have satisfied the clear mind of Margaret a year or two before.  But it was made by the man she loved, the man who had brought her out into a world that was full of sunlight and prosperity and satisfied desire; and more and more, day by day, she saw the world through his eyes, and accepted his estimate of the motives of people—­and a low estimate I fear it was.  Who would not be rich if he could?  Do you mean to tell me that a man who is getting fat dividends out of a stock does not regard more leniently the manner in which that stock is manipulated than one who does not own any of it?  I dare say, if Carmen had heard that explanation, and seen Margaret’s tearful, happy acceptance of it, she would have shaken her pretty head and said, “They are getting too worldly for me.”

In the morning the letter was despatched to Miss Forsythe, enclosing the check for Mrs. Fletcher—­a joyful note, full of affection.  “We cannot come,” Margaret wrote.  “My husband cannot leave, and he does not want to spare me”—­the little hypocrite! he had told her that she could easily go for a day “but we shall think of you dear ones all day, and I do hope that now there will not be the least cloud on your Christmas.”

It seems a great pity, in view of the scientific organization of society, that there are so many sensibilities unclassified and unprovided for in the otherwise perfect machinery.  Why should the beggar to whom you toss a silver dollar from your carriage feel a little grudge against you?  Perhaps he wouldn’t like to earn the dollar, but if it had been accompanied by a word of sympathy, his sensibility might have been soothed by your recognition of human partnership in the goods of this world.  People not paupers are all eager to take what is theirs of right; but anything in the semblance of charity is a bitter pill to swallow until self-respect is a little broken down.  Probably the resentment lies in the recognition of the truth that it is much easier to be charitable than to be just.  If Margaret had seen the effect produced by her letter she might have thought of this; she might have gone further, and reflected upon what would have been her own state of mind two years earlier if she had received such a letter.  Miss Forsythe read it with a very heavy heart.  She hesitated about showing it to Mrs. Fletcher, and when she did, and gave her the check, it was with a sense of shame.