e. When he spoke it was to say:

"Why have you done this, Elinor?"

"Because I had to, David. Could I do less?"

"I suppose not. It's in the blood--in your blood and mine. Other folk call
it the Puritan virus of over-righteousness, and scoff at it. I don't know:
sometimes I think they have the best of the argument."

"I can't believe you are quite sincere when you say that," she asserted.

"Yes, I am. One can not compromise with conscience; that says itself. But
I have come to believe latterly that one's conscience may be morbidly
acute, or even diseased. I'll admit I've been taking treatment."

"That sounds very dreadful," she rejoined.

"It does, doesn't it? Yet it had to be done. As I intimated a few minutes
ago, my life has hitherto been a sort of unostentatious failure. I used to
think it was because I was outclassed: I know now it has been because I
wouldn't do as other men do. It has been a rather heart-breaking
process--to sort out the scruples, admitting the just and overriding the
others--but I have been given to see that it is the price of success."

"I want you to succeed," she said.

"Pardon me; I don't think you do. You have reopened the door to doubt, and
if I admit the doubt I shall fail."

The sonata Penelope was playing was approaching its finale, and Elinor was
suddenly shaken with a trembling fit of fear--the fear of consequences
which might involve this man's entire future. She knew Kent was leaning on
her, and she saw herself as one who has ruthlessly thrust an iron bar
among the wheels of a delicate mechanism. Who was she to be his
conscience-keeper--to stand in the way and bid him go back? Were her own
motives always so exalted? Had she not once deliberately debated this same
question of expediency, to the utter abasement of her own ideals?

Penelope had left the piano, and Loring was looking at his watch. Kent saw
them through the open window and got upon his feet.

"Grantham is saying he had no idea it was so late," he hazarded. "If I
thank you for what you have said I am afraid it must be as the patient
thanks the surgeon for the knife-stroke which leaves him a cripple for
life."

It was the one word needed to break her resolution.

"Oh, forget it; please forget it!" she said. "I had no right.... You are
doing a man's work in the world, and it must be done in a man's way. If I
can not help, you must not let me hinder. If you let anything I have said
discourage you, I shall never