tumbled, one after
another. It wa'n't in the nature of things that they could be stopped
till the last brick went. I don't talk much with my wife, any more
about it; but I should like to know how it strikes you."

"We can trace the operation of evil in the physical world," replied the
minister, "but I'm more and more puzzled about it in the moral world.
There its course is often so very obscure; and often it seems to
involve, so far as we can see, no penalty whatever. And in your own
case, as I understand, you don't admit--you don't feel sure--that you
ever actually did wrong this man----"

"Well, no; I don't. That is to say----"

He did not continue, and after a while Sewell said, with that subtle
kindness of his, "I should be inclined to think--nothing can be thrown
quite away; and it can't be that our sins only weaken us--that your
fear of having possibly behaved selfishly toward this man kept you on
your guard, and strengthened you when you were brought face to face
with a greater"--he was going to say temptation, but he saved Lapham's
pride, and said--"emergency."

"Do you think so?"

"I think that there may be truth in what I suggest."

"Well, I don't know what it was," said Lapham; "all I know is that when
it came to the point, although I could see that I'd got to go under
unless I did it--that I couldn't sell out to those Englishmen, and I
couldn't let that man put his money into my business without I told him
just how things stood."

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