"No," said May, with a profound sigh, as she came back to the bedside. "It was a question of honour, don't you see? You couldn't have made it right, except by being horrified at what you had done and feeling that you could never, never make it right! Do you understand what I mean?"
Gwen was trying to understand.
"That would have made Mrs. Potten worse," she said hoarsely.
"No," said May, with a quiet emphasis on the word. "If you had really been terribly unhappy about your honour, Mrs. Potten would have sympathised! Don't you see what I mean?"
"But how could I be so terribly unhappy about such a mere accident?" protested Gwen, tearfully. "I might have returned the money. I very nearly did twice, only somehow I didn't. It just seemed to happen like that, and it was such a little affair."
May sat down again and put her cool hand on the girl's brow. It was no use talking about honour to the child. To Belinda and Co. honour was, what was expected of you by people who were in the swim, and if Mrs. Potten had made no discovery, or had forgiven it when it was made, Gwendolen's "honour" would have remained bright and untarnished. That was Gwendolen's sense of the moral situation! Her vision went no further. Still May's silence was disturbing. Gwendolen felt that she had not been understood, and that she was being reproved by that silence, though the reproof was gentle, very different from the kind of reproof that would probably be administered by her mother. On the other hand, the reproof was not merited.
"Would you," said Gwendolen, with a gulp in her throat, "would you spoil somebody's whole life because they took some trifle that nobody really missed or wanted, intending to give it back, only didn't somehow get the opportunity? Would you?"
"Your whole life isn't spoiled," said May. "If you take what has happened very seriously you may make your life more honourable in the future than it has been. Don't you see that if what you had done had not been discovered you might have gone on doing these things all your life. That would have spoiled your life!"
"But my engagement!" moaned Gwen. "I shall have to go to that horrid Stow, unless mother has got an invitation for me, and mother will be so upset. She'll be so angry!"
What could May say to give the girl any real understanding of her own responsibilities? Was she to drift about like a leaf in the wind, without principles, with no firm basis upon which she could stand and take her part in the struggle of human life?