“I have lost something,” I sighed sadly.
Madge looked at me quickly, started to speak, hesitated, and then said, “Oh, Mr. Gordon, if you only could know how badly I have felt about that, and how I appreciate the sacrifice.”
I had only meant that I had lost my heart, and, for that matter, probably my head, for it would have been ungenerous even to hint to Miss Cullen that I had made any sacrifice of conscience for her sake, and I would as soon have asked her to pay for it in money as have told her.
“You mustn’t think—” I began.
“I have felt,” she continued, “that your wish to serve us made you do something you never would have otherwise done, for—Well, you—any one can see how truthful and honest—and it has made me feel so badly that we—Oh, Mr. Gordon, no one has a right to do wrong in this world, for it brings such sadness and danger to innocent—And you have been so generous—”
I couldn’t let this go on. “What I did,” I told her, “was to fight fire with fire, and no one is responsible for it but myself.”
“I should like to think that, but I can’t,” she said. “I know we all tried to do something dishonest, and while you didn’t do any real wrong, yet I don’t think you would have acted as you did except for our sake. And I’m afraid you may some day regret—”
“I sha’n’t,” I cried; “and, so far from meaning that I had lost my self-respect, I was alluding to quite another thing.”
“Time?” she asked.
“No.”