water."

"No," he answered, as if he felt the censure which I had not been able
to keep out of my voice.

II.

I do not know why I should have chosen to take this simple fact as proof
of an abiding want of straight-forwardness in Tedham's nature. I do not
know why I should have expected him to change, or why I should have felt
authorized at that moment to renew his punishment for it. I certainly
had said and thought very often that he had been punished enough, and
more than enough. In fact, his punishment, like all the other
punishments that I have witnessed in life, seemed to me wholly out of
proportion to the offence; it seemed monstrous, atrocious, and when I
got to talking of it I used to become so warm that my wife would warn me
people would think I wanted to do something like Tedham myself if I went
on in that way about him. Yet here I was, at my very first encounter
with the man, after his long expiation had ended, willing to add at
least a little self-reproach to his suffering. I suppose, as nearly as I
can analyse my mood, I must have been expecting, in spite of all reason
and experience, that his anguish would have wrung that foible out of
him, and left him strong where it had found him weak. Tragedy befalls
the light and foolish as well as the wise and weighty natures, but it
does not render them wise and weighty; I had often made this sage
reflection, but I failed to apply it to the case before me now.

After waiting a little for the displeasure to clear away from my face,
Tedham smiled as if in humorous appreciation, and I perceived, as
nothing else could have shown me so well, that he was still the old
Tedham. There was an offer of propitiation in this smile, too, and I did
not like that, either; but I was touched when I saw a certain hope die
out of his eye at the failure of his appeal to me.

"Who told you I was here?" I asked, more kindly. "Did you see Mrs.
March?"

"No, I think it must have been your children. I found them in front of
your house, and I asked them for you, without going to the door."

"Oh," I said, and I hid the disappointment I felt that he had not seen
my wife; for I should have liked such a leading as her behavior toward
him would have given me for my own. I was sure she would have known him
at once, and would not have told him where to find me, if she had not
wished me to be friendly with him.

"I am glad to see you," I said, in the absence of this leading; and then
I d