“Tony’s question is unnecessary,” said Violet Wayne. “If the man were sincerely sorry there would be an end of the difficulty. He would put it straight by making reparation.” “He might find it difficult,” said Hester. Tony seemed to wince, and once more turned his attention to the daisy, but when the rest sat silent he glanced at Violet. “I rather think we are getting away from the point, but since you seem to expect it I’ll take up that man’s brief,” he said. “Well, we will assume that he is a well‐intentioned person who has only slipped up once, and is trying to make up for what he has done. Now, if he were left alone, such a man might go straight all the rest of his life.” “That’s specious, but distinctly unorthodox,” said Hester. “Who had those beautifully illuminated tables of the law put up in Northrop church, Tony?” Nettie laughed to conceal her interest. “But John P. Robinson, he says they didn’t know everything down in Judee. That’s latter day American, but it’s what a good many people seem to think. Please go on, Mr. Palliser.” “I can’t go very far. Still, we’ll try to picture such a man giving liberally where it’s wanted, going straight, and doing what good he can all round. We’ll say the lives of other people who believe in him are bound up in his, and their happiness depends upon his holding their confidence. Now, would it be a kindness to anybody to bring everything down crashing about his head?” He stopped, and glanced with a curious half‐veiled appeal in his eyes at Violet, but she shook her head, and the gravity Nettie had once or twice wondered at crept into her face. It showed perfect in its contour and modelling under the big hat, but its clear pallor was more noticeable just then, and it seemed to Nettie very cold. Then she smiled faintly. “It is a very old question. Can a man be pardoned and retain the offence? Still, I think it was answered decisively,” she said. Tony said nothing, and, as none of the others appeared inclined to talk, the stillness of the afternoon made itself felt. The pale yellow sunshine lay hot upon the lawn, and the soft murmur of the river came up across the corn, which, broken by dusky woodlands steeped in slumbrous shadow and meadow no longer green, rolled back in waves of ruddy bronze into the valley. Beyond it the hillsides, narrowing in, faded blurred and dim into the hazy distance. Still, the eyes of Tony and Violet Wayne were fixed upon the raw blotch of brickwork rising against the green woods above a flashing pool of the river. The rushy meadows and barren hillside environing it were now worth the best plough land on the Northrop estate, and, as both of those who looked at them remembered then, they had been intended as Appleby’s inheritance.