"You don't know anything about it," he said. "What are the doings of this
silly world, of our makeshift appearances, to the essentials? Antics--
filling up time! You speak as if she gave Ingram everything, and lost it.
She did, but he never knew it--so never had it. Ingram had what he was
fitted to receive. Her impulse, her impulsion were divine. She has lost
nothing--and he has gained nothing."

"If you talk philosophy I'm done," cried Mr. Chevenix. "Well, I say to
you, my boy, Go and see her. She's so far human that she's got a tongue,
and likes to wag it, I suppose. I don't say that there's trouble, and I
don't say there's not. But there are the makings of it. She's alone, and
may be moped. I don't know. You'd better judge for yourself."

Senhouse, trembling from his recent fire, turned away his face. "I don't
know that I dare. If she's unhappy, I shall be in the worst place I ever
was in my life. I don't know what I shall do."

"That's the first time you ever said that, I'll go bail," Chevenix
interrupted him. But Senhouse did not hear him.

"I did everything I could at the time. I nearly made her quarrel with me--
I dared do that. I went up to Wanless and saw Ingram. I hated the fellow,
I disapproved of him, feared him. He was the last man in the world I could
have tackled with a view to redemption. He was almost hopelessly bad,
according to my view of things. Fed by slaves from the cradle, hag-ridden
by his vices; a purple young bully, a product of filthy sloth, scabbed
with privilege. I saw just how things were. She pitied him, and thought it
was her business to save him. She did nobly. She gave herself for pity;
and if she mistook that for love, the splendid generosity of her is enough
to take the breath away. The world ought to have gone down on its knees to