"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 of the thing proves beyond a doubt that he acted on principle, not on impulse. If he had flung himself into the life-boat because he was a coward, he would have been ashamed of it; and whatever he might have done afterwards, he would never have done that thing again. He would have been sensitive: not saving his own life would have turned into an obsession with him. But there is left, I admit, the murder. And murders always take the public. So I'll give you the murder--though it throws no light on Ferguson, who is the only thing in the whole accursed affair that really counts." "The murder? I don't see--unless you mean the murdering of the tow-headed child."