m for sparing him at last. For one of your vindictive
temperament it must have been difficult.

"I have told you the worst things I know of you, and I do not
pretend to know them more than superficially. I am not asked to
judge you, and I will not. You must be your own judge. You are to
decide whether these and other acts of yours are the acts of a man
good enough to be intrusted with the happiness of a woman who has
already been very unhappy.

"You have sometimes, however--oftener than I wished--come to me for
advice, and I now offer you some advice voluntarily. Do not suppose
that because you love this woman, as you believe, you are fit to be
the keeper of her future. Ask yourself how you have dealt hitherto
with those who have loved you, and whom in a sort you loved, and do
not go further unless the answer is such as you can fully and
faithfully report to the woman you wish to marry. What you have
made yourself you will be to the end. You once called me an
idealist, and perhaps you will call this idealism. I will only add,
and I will give the last word in your defence, you alone know what
you are."

LIII.

As soon as Westover had posted his letter he began to blame himself for
it. He saw that the right and manly thing would have been to write
to Mrs. Vostrand, and tell her frankly what he thought of Durgin.
Her folly, her insincerity, her vulgarity, had nothing to do with the
affair, so far as he was concerned. If she had once been so kind to him
as to bind him to her in grateful friendship, she certainly had a claim
upon his best offices. His duty was to her, and not at all to Durgin. He
need not have said anything against him because it was against him,
but because it was true; and if he had written he must not have said
anything less than the truth.

He could have chosen not to write at all. He could have said that her
mawkish hypocrisy was a little too much; that she was really wanting him
to whitewash Durgin for her, and she had no right to put upon him the
responsibility for the step she clearly wished to take. He could have
made either of these decisions, and defended them to himself; but in
what he had done he had altogether shirked. While he was writing to
Durgin, and pretending that he could justly leave this affair to him, he
was simply indulging a bit of sentimental pose, far worse than anything
in Mrs. Vostrand's sham appeal for his help.