The whole issue in the singular muddle, he pointed out, seemed to be whether or not the poor fellow had known that the boat was upset.  Well, who could say what he knew, an intoxicated man in a blind passion?  Not Carlisle, certainly, plunged suddenly into the sea and intensely occupied with saving her life.  How, for instance, could she know it if, in the instant when she was under water, the man had glanced back and—­deadened by his drunken anger, admit that for him—­had not returned for her?  Of the dozens of people who had witnessed the disaster, not one had doubted that the unfortunate chap’s desertion of her had been deliberate....  However, imagine that it hadn’t been, exactly, imagine that the women in their excitement and resentment, and through misunderstanding of each other’s statements, had failed to give him the full benefit of the doubt.  It was still a great mistake to assume that what they had said or left unsaid had been decisive.  Public opinion, knowing the unstable character of the man, had already judged him.  Did his later life and behavior indicate, really, that that judgment was far wrong?  And as to that night of excitement long ago, the world’s rough-and-ready justice would hardly have taken much account of Carlisle’s generous theory that perhaps the man didn’t know what he was doing.  By the same token, it would scarcely reopen the case now to admit that kind conjecture....

“I honor from the bottom of my heart, Carlisle,” said Canning, “your wish to do the strictest justice.  Need I say that I’m with you there, against the world?  But what is the strictest justice?  Perhaps you might bring a ray of relief to the poor man’s father, and that’s all.  Is that really so great an object to move heaven and earth for, at the cost of much pain and distress to all who love you?...”

Having spoken at some length, Canning paused for a reply.  The pause ran longer than he found encouraging.  However, he was no more sensitive to it, to Carlisle’s strange unresponsiveness as he talked, than was the girl herself.  Indeed, it tore Cally’s heart to seem to oppose her lover, pleading so strongly and sweetly for her against herself.  Yet she had several times been tempted to interrupt him, so clear did it seem to her that he did not understand even now all that she had supposed was fully plain to him last night.

She said with marked nervousness, and a kind of eagerness, too:  “You’re so good and dear in the way you look at it, Hugo.  You don’t know—­how sweet....  But it all comes down to whether he knew—­doesn’t it—­just as you said.  Well, you see I really know he didn’t—­”

“You’re mistaken there, my dear!  Only God Almighty knows that.  Don’t you think we had better leave the judgment to him?”

That Canning spoke quite patiently was a great credit to his self-control.  His failure to move her had filled him with a depressing and mortifying surprise.  To say nothing of the regard she might be supposed to have for his wishes, he knew that he had spoken unanswerably.