The hospital had taught Sidney one thing: that it took many people to make a world, and that out of these some were inevitably vicious. But vice had remained for her a clear abstraction. There were such people, and because one was in the world for service one cared for them. Even the Saviour had been kind to the woman of the streets.
But here abruptly Sidney found the great injustice of the world—that because of this vice the good suffer more than the wicked. Her young spirit rose in hot rebellion.
“It isn't fair!” she cried. “It makes me hate all the men in the world. Palmer cares for you, and yet he can do a thing like this!”
Christine was pacing nervously up and down the room. Mere companionship had soothed her. She was now, on the surface at least, less excited than Sidney.
“They are not all like Palmer, thank Heaven,” she said. “There are decent men. My father is one, and your K., here in the house, is another.”
At four o'clock in the morning Palmer Howe came home. Christine met him in the lower hall. He was rather pale, but entirely sober. She confronted him in her straight white gown and waited for him to speak.
“I am sorry to be so late, Chris,” he said. “The fact is, I am all in. I was driving the car out Seven Mile Run. We blew out a tire and the thing turned over.”
Christine noticed then that his right arm was hanging inert by his side.