"Was there ever any poor creatures in such a strait before?" she asked, with pathetic incredulity.
"There's no new trouble under the sun," said the minister.
"Oh, if it was any one else, I should say--I should say--Why, of course! I should say that their duty was to let----" She paused.
"One suffer instead of three, if none is to blame?" suggested Sewell. "That's sense, and that's justice. It's the economy of pain which naturally suggests itself, and which would insist upon itself, if we were not all perverted by traditions which are the figment of the shallowest sentimentality. Tell me, Mrs. Lapham, didn't this come into your mind when you first learned how matters stood?"
"Why, yes, it flashed across me. But I didn't think it could be right."
"And how was it with you, Mr. Lapham?"
"Why, that's what I thought, of course. But I didn't see my way----"
"No," cried the minister, "we are all blinded, we are all weakened by a false ideal of self-sacrifice. It wraps us round with its meshes, and we can't fight our way out of it. Mrs. Lapham, what made you feel that it might be better for three to suffer than one?"
"Why, she did herself. I know she would die sooner than take him away from her."
"I supposed so!" cried the minister bitterly. "And yet she is a sensible girl, your daughter?"