"Father takes it very hard. He isn't naturally morbid, but he seems to feel as if he had been responsible--Grant being back of it all. But we didn't know those men were going out there--we knew nothing until it was all over!" The girl spoke as if she too felt the responsibility. "And he thinks he ought to have known about Wheaton--ought to have seen what kind of man he was!" Evelyn's blue foulard was beyond criticism and it matched her parasol perfectly; the girl had never been prettier. Mrs. Whipple inwardly apologized for having admitted the thought of Wheaton to her mind. "We can all accuse ourselves in the same way. To think of it--that he has actually passed tea in this very room!" Her shrug of loathing was so real that Evelyn shuddered. Then Mrs. Whipple laughed, so suddenly that it startled Evelyn. "It's dreadful! horrible!" Mrs. Whipple continued, "to find that a person you have really looked upon with liking--perhaps with admiration--has been all along eaten with a moral leprosy. If it weren't for poor Warry we should be able to look upon it as a profitable experience. There aren't many like Wheaton. The bishop thinks we ought to be lenient in dealing with him--that he was not really so bad; that he was simply weak--that his weakness was a kind of disease of his moral nature. But I can't see it that way myself. The man ought not to go scot-free. He ought to be punished. But it's too intangible and subtle for the law to take hold of." Evelyn had picked up her card-case. It was a pretty trifle of silver and leather; she tapped the handle of her parasol with it. Something had occurred to Mrs. Whipple when she laughed a moment before, and seeing that Evelyn was about to rise, she said casually: "Mr. Saxton doesn't share the bishop's gentle charity toward Wheaton." She watched Evelyn as she applied the test. The girl did not raise her eyes at once. She bent over the parasol meditatively, still tapping the handle with the card-case. "What does Mr. Saxton say?" Evelyn asked, dropping the trinket into her lap and looking at her friend vaguely, as people do who ask questions out of courtesy rather than from honest curiosity. "Mr. Saxton says that Wheaton's a scoundrel--a damned scoundrel, to be literal. He told the general so, here, a few nights ago. He seemed very bitter. You know what close friends he and Warry were!" "Yes; it was an ideal kind of friendship. They were devoted to each other," said Evelyn very earnestly; there was a little cry in her voice as she spoke. It was as though happiness, struggling against sorrow, had almost gained the mastery. "It's fine to see that in men. I sometimes think that friendships among them have a quality that ours lack. I think Mr. Saxton is very lonely. I wasn't here when he called, but the general saw him. You know the general likes him particularly." "Yes." "You and he both knew and appreciated Warry."