Yet, perhaps, if that had happened she wouldn't have killed herself....

Oh, I don't know!" Martin Hillyard had never seen Harry Luttrell so moved or sunk in such remorse.

He did not argue, lest he should but add fuel to this high flame of self-reproach.

Life had become so much easier as a problem with him, so much inner probing and speculation and worry about small vanities had been smoothed away since he had been engaged day after day in a definite service which was building up by a law deduced here, an inspired formula there, a tradition for its servants.

The service, the tradition, would dissolve and blow to nothing, when peace came again.
Meanwhile there was the worth of traditional service made clear to him, in an indifference to the little enmities which before would have hurt and rankled, in a freedom from doubt when decision was needed, above all in a sort of underlying calm which strengthened as his life became more turbulently active.
"It's a clear principle of life which make the difference," he said, hesitating, because to say even so much made him feel a prig.