"There are not many such to be had."
"I fear mine wasn't just what he ought to be, though he can't
have been such a rascal as his son: he hadn't time; he had his
money to make."
"He had the temptation to make it, and you have the temptation to
spend it: which is the more dangerous, I don't know. Each has led
to many crimes."
"Oh, as to crimes--I don't know about that! It depends on what
you call crimes."
"It doesn't matter whether men call a deed a crime or a fault;
the thing is how God regards it, for that is the only truth about
it. What the world thinks, goes for nothing, because it is never
right. It would be worse in me to do some things the world counts
perfectly honorable, than it would be for this man to commit a
burglary, or that a murder. I mean my guilt might be greater in
committing a respectable sin, than theirs in committing a
disreputable one."
Had Mary known anything of science, she might have said that, in
morals as in chemistry, the qualitative analysis is easy, but the
quantitative another affair.
The latter part of this conversation, Sepia listening heard, and
misunderstood utterly.
All the rest of the day Mary was with Mr. Redmain, mostly by his
bedside, sitting in silent watchfulness when he was unable to
talk with her. Nobody entered the room except Mewks, who, when he
did, seemed to watch everything, and try to hear everything, and
once Lady Margaret.
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