but
there was no use in making it worse than it was, by imaginary exaggerations and
forebodings of evil that might never come. The temporary sadness for Hetty was
the worst consequence; he resolutely turned away his eyes from any bad
consequence that was not demonstrably inevitable. But - but Hetty might have had
the trouble in some other way if not in this. And perhaps hereafter he might be
able to do a great deal for her, and make up to her for all the tears she would
shed about him. She would owe the advantage of his care for her in future years
to the sorrow she had incurred now. So good comes out of evil. Such is the
beautiful arrangement of things!
    Are you inclined to ask whether this can be the same Arthur who, two months
ago, had that freshness of feeling, that delicate honour which shrinks from
wounding even a sentiment, and does not contemplate any more positive offence as
possible for it? - who thought that his own self-respect was a higher tribunal
than any external opinion? The same, I assure you, only under different
conditions. Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds; and until
we know what has been or will be the peculiar combination of outward with inward
facts, which constitutes a man's critical actions, it will be better not to
think ourselves wise about his character. There is a terrible coercion in our
deeds which may first turn the honest man into a deceiver, and then reconcile
him to the change; for this reason - that the second wrong presents itself to
him in the guise of the only practicable right. The action which before
commission has been seen with that blended common-sense and fresh untarnished
feeling which is the healthy eye of the soul, is looked at afterwards with the
lens of apologetic ingenuity, through which all things that men call beautiful
and ugly are seen to be made up of textures very much alike. Europe adjusts
itself to a fait accompli, and so does an individual character, - until the
placid adjustment is disturbed by a convulsive retribution.
    No man can escape this vitiating effect of an offence against his own
sentiment of right, and the effect was the stronger in Arthur because of that
very need of self-respect which, while his conscience was still at ease, was one
of his best safeguards. Self-accusation was too painful to him - he could not
face it. He must persuade himself that he had not been very much to blame; he
began even to pity himself for the necessity he was under of deceiving Adam: it
was