Neither one nor another was leader.

In earlier days they had always yielded to him who no longer met with them a certain chieftainship, and they still thought of him and talked of him, and, in their conjectures, groped after him, as one of whom they continued to expect greater things than of themselves.
They sat one day drawn thus close together, sipping and theorizing, speculating upon the nature of things in an easy, bold, sophomoric way, the conversation for the most part being in French, the native tongue of the doctor and priest, and spoken with facility by Jean Thompson the lawyer, who was half Americain; but running sometimes into English and sometimes into mild laughter.

Mention had been made of the absentee.
Pere Jerome advanced an idea something like this: "It is impossible for any finite mind to fix the degree of criminality of any human act or of any human life.

The Infinite One alone can know how much of our sin is chargeable to us, and how much to our brothers or our fathers.

We all participate in one another's sins.