Thus it would seem as if fate wished to make amends for the sorry tricks it had played Mavis.  Her first impressions after hearing the news were of such a contradictory nature that she was quite bewildered.  Those present at the reading of the will, together with Montague Devitt, who had accompanied her, hastened to offer their congratulations (those of Devitt being chastened by the reflection of how much his daughter Victoria suffered from Mavis’s good fortune), but, even while these were talking and shaking her hand, two salient emotions were already emerging from the welter in Mavis’s mind.  One of these was an immeasurable, passionate regret for her child’s untimely death.  If he had lived, she would now have been able to devote her sudden enrichment to providing him, not only with the comforts that wealth can secure, but also with a career when he should come to man’s estate.  The other emotion possessing her was the inevitable effect of unexpected good fortune on a great and persistent remorse:  more than ever, she suffered tortures of self-reproach for having set out to marry her husband from motives of revenge against his family.  Whilst thus occupied with her thoughts, she became conscious that someone was watching her; she turned in the direction from which she believed she was being regarded, to see Charlie Perigal with his eyes fixed on her.  She looked him full in the eyes, the while she was relieved to find that his presence did not affect the beating of her heart.  Seeing that she did not avoid his glance, he came over to her.

“I congratulate you,” he said.

“Thank you,” she replied indifferently.

“I have also to congratulate you on your marriage—­that is, if you are happy.”

“I am very happy,” she declared with conviction.

“That’s more than I am.”

“Indeed!” she remarked carelessly.

“Although, in some respects, I deserve all I’ve got—­I’m bad and mean right through.”

“Indeed!” said Mavis, as before.

“But there’s something to be said for me.  To begin with, no one can help being what they are.  There’s no more merit in your being good than there is demerit in my being what I am.”

“Did I ever lay claim to goodness?”

“Because you didn’t, it goes nearer to making you good and admirable than anything else you could do.  Directly virtue becomes self-conscious, it is vulgar.”

Mavis began to wonder if it would ease the pain at her heart if she were to confess her duplicity to her husband.

Perigal continued: 

“An act is judged by its results; it is considered either virtuous or vicious according as its results are harmful or helpful to the person affected.”

“Indeed!” said Mavis absently.

“Once upon a time, there was no right and no wrong, till one man in the human tribe got more than his fair share of arrow-heads—­then, his wish to keep them without fighting for them led to the begetting of vice and virtue as we know it.”