too, Hamlen, and she
knows that she brought it on herself."

"Marian asks _my_ forgiveness!" he repeated stupefied,--"she asks me to
forgive her?"

Huntington nodded.

He pressed his hands against his temples. "My God, man! Is the world all
topsy-turvy! I forget my obligations toward my hostess, I am false to
my responsibilities as a friend, I force myself upon a married woman
whom in all honor I am bound to protect,--and she asks me to forgive
her! You are mocking me, Huntington. It is unworthy of you!"

"It is the provocation she understands, Hamlen, and having unwittingly
given it, she accepts the responsibility, as she should. I'm not sure
that I myself am not the one to blame, for I knew better than she the
forces held back only by your self-control. If I had been more insistent
in my warning all might have been different."

"That may explain, but it does not condone."

"At least it mitigates. The beaver, innocently enough, undermines a dam
in securing material to build its home, and the waters rush down to the
destruction of the surrounding country. Surely you can't blame the
waters! Nor can you seriously blame the beaver for not comprehending
those natural laws of cause and effect.--Come, Hamlen, admit there's
something in what I say, and realize that this is an accident rather
than a tragedy."

Again Hamlen tried to smile, but the expression on his face failed to
reassure.

"It would be well for me if it were you upon the bench," Hamlen said
gravely. "The prisoner at the bar would receive far more leniency than
he will from me! No, Huntington; I can admit nothing. I believed that I
reached my lowest depth before I met you all in Bermuda. I believed my
life was over,--a miserable, useless, lonely life if you will, but at
least an honest one. Then you instilled hope into my dry bones. Judgment
warned me not to listen to you, human weakness tempted me to make one
further effort to redeem myself. I came to you here. Out of the bigness
of your heart you gave me of yourself, you taught me what life really
was. I acknowledge my debt, Huntington, and am grateful to you. Don't
mistake that, my friend, in what I am going to say. The joy of the new
experience lulled me into a sense of false security. I thought myself
like other men, strong enough to hold the passionate love I have always
borne that woman down, down where no one could ever see it. That was my
arrogance, Huntington; for it, I am paying the price."