“I know, White, I ought to have sent that money, but how was I to know then that it was so imperative to send that money?...
“At the time it seemed just pandering to his vices....
“I was angry. I shall never subdue that kind of hastiness altogether. It takes me by surprise. Before the messenger was out of sight I had repented....
“I failed him. I have gone about in the world dreaming of tremendous things and failing most people. My wife too....”
He stopped talking for a little time and folded his arms tight and stared hard in front of himself, his lips compressed.
“You see, White,” he said, with a kind of setting of the teeth, “this is the sort of thing one has to stand. Life is imperfect. Nothing can be done perfectly. And on the whole—” He spoke still more slowly, “I would go through again with the very same things that have hurt my people. If I had to live over again. I would try to do the things without hurting the people, but I would do the things anyhow. Because I'm raw with remorse, it does not follow that on the whole I am not doing right. Right doing isn't balm. If I could have contrived not to hurt these people as I have done, it would have been better, just as it would be better to win a battle without any killed or wounded. I was clumsy with them and they suffered, I suffer for their suffering, but still I have to stick to the way I have taken. One's blunders are accidents. If one thing is clearer than another it is that the world isn't accident-proof....
“But I wish I had sent those dollars to Prothero.... God! White, but I lie awake at night thinking of that messenger as he turned away.... Trying to stop him....
“I didn't send those dollars. So fifty or sixty people were killed and many wounded.... There for all practical purposes the thing ends. Perhaps it will serve to give me a little charity for some other fool's haste and blundering....
“I couldn't help it, White. I couldn't help it....
“The main thing, the impersonal thing, goes on. One thinks, one learns, one adds one's contribution of experience and understanding. The spirit of the race goes on to light and comprehension. In spite of accidents. In spite of individual blundering.