t. But you must see yourself, when you reflect, that Mrs.
Fletcher could not take this from you. Her self-respect would not permit
it. Somebody has done a great wrong, and only those who have done it can
undo it. I don't know much about such things, my dear, and I don't
believe all that the newspapers have been saying, but there would be no
need for charity if there had not been dishonesty somewhere. I cannot
help thinking that. We do not blame you. And you must not take it to
heart that I am compelled to send this back. I understand why you sent
it, and you must try to understand why it cannot be kept."

There was more of this sort in the letter. It was full of a kind of
sorrowful yearning, as if there was fear that Margaret's love were
slipping away and all the old relations were being broken up, but yet it
had in it a certain moral condemnation that the New England spinster
could not conceal. Softened as it was by affectionate words, and all the
loving messages of the season, it was like a slap in the face to
Margaret. She read it in the first place with intense mortification, and
then with indignation. This was the way her loving spirit was flung back
upon her! They did not blame her! They blamed her husband, then. They
condemned him. It was his generosity that was spurned.

Is there a particular moment when we choose our path in life, when we
take the right or the left? At this instant, when Margaret arose with the
crumpled letter in her hand, and marched towards her husband's library,
did she choose, or had she been choosing for the two years past, and was
this only a publication of her election? Why had she secretly been a
little relieved from restraint when her Brandon visit ended in the
spring? They were against her husband; they disapproved of him, that was
clear. Was it not a wife's duty to stand by her husband? She was
indignant with the Brandon scrupulousness; it chafed her.. Was this
simply because she loved her husband, or was this indignation a little
due also to her liking for the world which so fell in with her
inclinations? The motives in life are so mixed that it seems impossible
wholly to condemn or wholly to approve. If Margaret's destiny had been
united with such a man as John Lyon, what would have been her discernment
in such a case as this? It is such a pity that for most people there is
only one chance in life.

She laid the letter and the check upon her husband's desk. He read it
with a slig