ceeded from... it wasn't as though he had gone
...he wouldn't have gone, anyway.

He heard footsteps on the porch, and turned, recognizing
Doctor Pelliter. He half-rose to go to the
other with an inquiry; but he dropped quickly back
on the bank, looked away. -- Some time before the
doctor had tied a towel about his waist... it had
been a white towel.

His mind returned to Lettice and the terrible
mischance that had been brought upon her; that he
had brought on her. He tested the latter clause,
and attempted to reject it: he had done nothing to
provoke such a terrible actuality. He rehearsed the
entire chain of events which had resulted in the purchase
of the pearl necklace; he followed it as far
back as the evening when, from the minister's lawn,
he had seen Meta Beggs undressing at her window.
He could nowhere discover any desperate wrong
committed. He knew men, plenty of them, who
were actually unfaithful to their wives: he had done
nothing of that sort. He endeavored to grow infuriated
with Meta Beggs, then with Mrs. Caley; he
endeavored to place upon them the responsibility for
that attenuated, agonized sound from the house; but
without success. He had made a terrible blunder.
But, in a universe where the slightest fairness ruled,
he and not Lettice would pay for an error purely his
own.

[[265]]

p264 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p265w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p266

v?