Hamlen looked at him with a wan smile. "I wish there were," he said; "but let us not speak of that. To you, at least, there is no need of explanation. I told you what I dreaded,—well, the worst has come to pass; that's all there is to it."
"No!" Huntington contradicted, determined that he should not bear all the blame; "there is much more to it than that. You and I are not the only ones who understand. Mrs. Thatcher instructed me to ask your forgiveness for her blindness. She understands, too, Hamlen, and she knows that she brought it on herself."
"Marian asks my forgiveness!" he repeated stupefied,—"she asks me to forgive her?"
Huntington nodded.
He pressed his hands against his temples. "My God, man! Is the world all topsy-turvy! I forget my obligations toward my hostess, I am false to my responsibilities as a friend, I force myself upon a married woman whom in all honor I am bound to protect,—and she asks me to forgive her! You are mocking me, Huntington. It is unworthy of you!"
"It is the provocation she understands, Hamlen, and having unwittingly given it, she accepts the responsibility, as she should. I'm not sure that I myself am not the one to blame, for I knew better than she the forces held back only by your self-control. If I had been more insistent in my warning all might have been different."
"That may explain, but it does not condone."
"At least it mitigates. The beaver, innocently enough, undermines a dam in securing material to build its home, and the waters rush down to the destruction of the surrounding country. Surely you can't blame the waters! Nor can you seriously blame the beaver for not comprehending those natural laws of cause and effect.—Come, Hamlen, admit there's something in what I say, and realize that this is an accident rather than a tragedy."
Again Hamlen tried to smile, but the expression on his face failed to reassure.
"It would be well for me if it were you upon the bench," Hamlen said gravely. "The prisoner at the bar would receive far more leniency than he will from me! No, Huntington; I can admit nothing. I believed that I reached my lowest depth before I met you all in Bermuda. I believed my life was over,—a miserable, useless, lonely life if you will, but at least an honest one. Then you instilled hope into my dry bones. Judgment warned me not to listen to you, human weakness tempted me to make one further effort to redeem myself. I came to you here. Out of the bigness of your heart you gave me of yourself, you taught me what life really was. I acknowledge my debt, Huntington, and am grateful to you. Don't mistake that, my friend, in what I am going to say. The joy of the new experience lulled me into a sense of false security. I thought myself like other men, strong enough to hold the passionate love I have always borne that woman down, down where no one could ever see it. That was my arrogance, Huntington; for it, I am paying the price."