oke down, crying. Her husband tried to think of some comforting
thing to say, and presently came out with this:

"But after all, Mary, it must be for the best--it must be; we know that.
And we must remember that it was so ordered--"

"Ordered! Oh, everything's ORDERED, when a person has to find some way
out when he has been stupid. Just the same, it was ORDERED that the
money should come to us in this special way, and it was you that must
take it on yourself to go meddling with the designs of Providence--and
who gave you the right? It was wicked, that is what it was--just
blasphemous presumption, and no more becoming to a meek and humble
professor of--"

"But, Mary, you know how we have been trained all our lives long, like
the whole village, till it is absolutely second nature to us to stop not
a single moment to think when there's an honest thing to be done--"

"Oh, I know it, I know it--it's been one everlasting training and
training and training in honesty--honesty shielded, from the very
cradle, against every possible temptation, and so it's ARTIFICIAL
honesty, and weak as water when temptation comes, as we have seen this
night. God knows I never had shade nor shadow of a doubt of my petrified
and indestructible honesty until now--and now, under the very first big
and real temptation, I--Edward, it is my belief that this town's honesty
is as rotten as mine is; as rotten as yours. It is a mean town, a hard,
stingy town, and hasn't a virtue in the world but this honesty it is so
celebrated for and so conceited about; and so help me, I do believe that
if ever the day comes that its honesty falls under great temptation, its
grand reputation will go to ruin like a house of cards. There, now, I've
made confession, and I feel better; I am a humbug, and I've been one all
my life, without knowing it. Let no man call me honest again--I will not
have it."

"I--Well, Mary, I feel a good deal as you do: I certainly do. It seems
strange, too, so strange. I never could have believed it--never."

A long silence followed; both were sunk in thought. At last the wife
looked up and said:

"I know what you are thinking, Edward."

Richards had the embarrassed look of a person who is caught.

"I am ashamed to confess it, Mary, but--"

"It's no matter, Edward, I was thinking the same question myself."

"I hope so. State it."

"You were thinking, if a body could only guess out WHAT THE REMARK WAS
that Goodson made to the stra