"It is the provocation she understands, Hamlen, and having unwittingly given it, she accepts the responsibility, as she should. I'm not sure that I myself am not the one to blame, for I knew better than she the forces held back only by your self-control. If I had been more insistent in my warning all might have been different." "That may explain, but it does not condone." "At least it mitigates. The beaver, innocently enough, undermines a dam in securing material to build its home, and the waters rush down to the destruction of the surrounding country. Surely you can't blame the waters! Nor can you seriously blame the beaver for not comprehending those natural laws of cause and effect.--Come, Hamlen, admit there's something in what I say, and realize that this is an accident rather than a tragedy." Again Hamlen tried to smile, but the expression on his face failed to reassure. "It would be well for me if it were you upon the bench," Hamlen said gravely. "The prisoner at the bar would receive far more leniency than he will from me! No, Huntington; I can admit nothing. I believed that I reached my lowest depth before I met you all in Bermuda. I believed my life was over,--a miserable, useless, lonely life if you will, but at least an honest one. Then you instilled hope into my dry bones. Judgment warned me not to listen to you, human weakness tempted me to make one further effort to redeem myself. I came to you here. Out of the bigness of your heart you gave me of yourself, you taught me what life really was. I acknowledge my debt, Huntington, and am grateful to you. Don't mistake that, my friend, in what I am going to say. The joy of the new experience lulled me into a sense of false security. I thought myself like other men, strong enough to hold the passionate love I have always borne that woman down, down where no one could ever see it. That was my arrogance, Huntington; for it, I am paying the price." "She understands now if she never did before," Huntington reiterated. "She felt her responsibility for your lonely years, and in trying to atone made matters worse." "It is not her place to protect me," Hamlen continued with conviction. "Take your own simile, with which you try to ease my sense of shame: even though the waters are not to be blamed, what do people do with them? Do they let them continue on their path of destruction? No, dear friend, your arguments are kindly meant, but untenable. I intend to put those waters where they will do no further harm." Huntington's face set in determined lines. "So you will dare to assume the prerogatives of man and God?" he demanded sternly. Hamlen had never seen Huntington in this mood, and his eyes shifted uneasily as they met the unflinching gaze of his friend.