lost their boy, and it was years before they could look
each other in the face and speak of him. No one gave up
more than they when they gave up each other and Lapham
went to the war. When he came back and began to work,
her zeal and courage formed the spring of his enterprise.
In that affair of the partnership she had tried to be
his conscience, but perhaps she would have defended him
if he had accused himself; it was one of those things
in this life which seem destined to await justice,
or at least judgment, in the next. As he said, Lapham had
dealt fairly by his partner in money; he had let Rogers
take more money out of the business than he put into it;
he had, as he said, simply forced out of it a timid
and inefficient participant in advantages which he
had created. But Lapham had not created them all.
He had been dependent at one time on his partner's capital.
It was a moment of terrible trial. Happy is the man
for ever after who can choose the ideal, the unselfish
part in such an exigency! Lapham could not rise to it.
He did what he could maintain to be perfectly fair.
The wrong, if any, seemed to be condoned to him,
except when from time to time his wife brought it up.
Then all the question stung and burned anew, and had
to be reasoned out and put away once more. It seemed
to have an inextinguishable vitality. It slept, but it did
not die.

His course did not shake Mrs. Lapham's faith in him.
It astonished her at first, and it always grieved
her that he could not see that he was acting solely