"Suppose you do your wondering afterwards," said his father impatiently; and Matt began to read. The positions of the article were not such as Hilary could have taken, probably, if he had been in a different mood; its implications were, some of them, such as he must have decidedly refused; but the temper of the whole was so humane, so forbearing, so enlightened, that Hilary was in a glow of personal gratitude to the writer, for what he called his common decency, by the time the reading was over. "That is a very extraordinary article," he said, and he joined Matt in wondering who could have done it, with the usual effect in such cases. "I wish," said Mrs. Hilary, "that every other newspaper could be kept from those poor things." She meant Northwick's daughters, and she added, "If they must know the facts, they couldn't be more mercifully told them." "Why, that was what I was thinking, mother," said Matt. "But they can't be kept to this version, unhappily. The misery will have to come on them shapelessly, as all our miseries do. I don't know that the other papers are so bad--" "Not bad!" cried his father. "No. They're not unkind to them, except as they are just to him. They probably represent fairly enough the average thinking and feeling about the matter; the thing they'll have to meet all their lives and get used to. But I wish I knew who did this _Abstract_ article; I should like to thank him." "The question is, now," said Mrs. Hilary, "What can we do for them there? Are you sure you made it clear to them, Matt, that we were willing to have them come to us, no matter _what_ happened?" "Louise and I both tried to do that," said her son, "when we were there together; and when I reported to them after Wellwater, I told them again and again what our wish was." "Well," said Mrs. Hilary, "I am glad we have done everything we could. At first I doubted the wisdom of your taking Louise to see them; but now I'm satisfied that it was right. And I'm satisfied that your father did right in getting that wretched creature the chance he abused." "Oh, yes," said Matt. "That was right. And I'm thoroughly glad he's out of it. If he's still alive, I'm glad he's out of it." Hilary had kept silent, miserably involved in his various remorses and misgivings, but now he broke out. "And I think you're talking abominable nonsense, Matt. I didn't get Northwick given that chance to enable him to escape the consequences of his rascality. Why shouldn't he be punished for it?" "Because it wouldn't do the least good, to him or to any one else. It wouldn't reform him, it wouldn't reform anything. Northwick isn't the disease; he's merely the symptom. You can suppress him; but that won't cure the disease. It's the whole social body that's sick, as this article in the _Abstract_ implies."