ave
done, you are in a state of virtuous chill."

"I should have written no such article. I don't see how you can be so
flippant."

"Flippant--I? Have I the figure of a flippant man? Can't you
see--honestly, now, can't you see?--that it was a hideous misfortune for
that situation to come to Ferguson twice? Can't you see that it was
about as hard luck as a man ever had? Look at it just once from his
point of view."

"I can't," said Chantry frankly. "I can understand a man's being a
coward, saving his own skin because he wants to. But to save his own
skin on principle--humph! Talk of paradoxes: there's one for you.
There's not a principle on earth that tells you to save your own life
at some one's else expense. If he thought it was principle, he was the
bigger defective of the two. Of course it would have been a pity; of
course we should all have regretted it; but there's not a human being in
this town, high or low, who wouldn't have applauded, with whatever
regret--who wouldn't have said he did the only thing a self-respecting
man could do. Of course it's a shame; but that is the only way the race
has ever got on: by the strong, because they were strong, going under
for the weak, because they were weak. Otherwise we'd all be living, to
this day, in hell."

"I know; I know." Havelock's voice was touched with emotion. "That's the
convention--invented by individualists, for individualists. All sorts of
people would see it that way, still. But you've got more sense than
most; and I will make you at least see the other point of view. Suppose
Ferguson to have been a good Catholic--or a soldier in the ranks. If his
confessor or his commanding officer had told him to save his own skin,
you'd consider Ferguson justified; you might even consider the priest or
the officer justified. The one thing you can't stand is the man's giving
himself those orders. But let's not argue over it now--let's go back to
the story. I'll make you 'get' Ferguson, anyhow--even if I can't make
him 'get' you.

"Well, here comes in the girl."

"And you said there was no girl in it!"

Chantry could not resist that. He believed that Havelock's assertion had
been made only because he didn't want the girl in it--resented her being
there.

"There isn't, as I see it," replied Havelock the Dane quietly. "From my
point of view, the story is over. Ferguson's decision: that is the whole
thing--made more interesting, more valuable, because the repetition o