The unwholesome three had shared his moral lapse with wide-open eyes, and were in no sense victims of his; but, disregarding their responsibility, they had, from sheer jealousy, wrecked his past, and, to their own surprise, had wrecked themselves as well.

They were of those who act first and then think--too late.
Thus it was that both men and women called Rockwell a handsome man, but thought of him as having only a crater of exhausted fires in place of a heart.

They came to him with their troubles--even the women of Manitou who ought to have gone to the priest.
He moved about Lebanon as one who had authority, and desired not to use it; as one to whom life was like a case in surgery to be treated with scientific, coolness, with humanity, but not with undue sympathy; yet the early morning of the day after Ingolby had had his accident at Barbazon's Hotel found him the slave of an emotion which shook him from head to foot.

He had saved his friend's life by a most skilful operation, but he had been shocked beyond control when, an hour after the operation was over, and consciousness returned to the patient in the brilliantly lighted room, Ingolby said: "Why don't you turn on the light ?" It was thus Rockwell knew that the Master Man, the friend of Lebanon and Manitou, was stone blind.

When Ingolby's voice ceased, a horrified silence filled the room for a moment.