The result turned suspicion toward Tom Gordon.
The merchant had learned, in the course of his long and varied experience, the sad truth that no man in the world can be picked out and declared, beyond all possibility of doubt, to be absolutely honest.

Thousands of people live and die and go to their graves wrapped in the mantle of unassailable integrity.

It may be they have not defrauded a person out of a penny, for the simple reason that the temptation has never been strong enough to make them do so.

Had it been a little stronger, they would have succumbed.

Others, after years of straightforward life, have fallen.