XI.


In the life of every man there comes a time when he is brought face
to face with the great problem of morality. The murderer undoubtedly
comprehends the problem in all its significance when he is about to
mount the scaffold, the faithless wife when she is dragged through the
divorce court, and her family and friends are humbled to the dust.

Dartmouth worked it out the next night as he sat by his library fire.
He had given the afternoon to his business affairs, but when night
threw him back into the sole companionship of his thoughts, he
doggedly faced the question which he had avoided all day.

What was sin? Could anyone tell, with the uneven standard set up by
morality and religion? The world smiled upon a loveless marriage. What
more degrading? It frowned upon a love perfect in all but the sanction
of the Church, if the two had the courage to proclaim their love. It
discreetly looked another way when the harlot of "Society" tripped
by with her husband on one hand and her lover on the other. A man
enriched himself at the expense of others by what he was pleased to
call his business sharpness, and died revered as a philanthropist; the
common thief was sent to jail.

Dartmouth threw back his head and clasped his hands behind it. Of
what use rehearsing platitudes? The laws of morality were concocted to
ensure the coherence and homogeneity of society; therefore, whatever
deleteriously affected society was crime of less or greater magnitude.
He and Sionèd Penrhyn had ruined the lives and happiness of two
people, had made a murderer of the one, and irrevocably hardened the