"I am the happiest fellow in the world," he declared. "And that," he added, as though it were a rare and precious coincidence, "with my conscience quite at peace."
Perhaps it is rare, and perhaps the Captain's conscience had no right to be quite at peace. For certainly he had not told all the truth to his dear friend, the Count of Fieramondi. Yet since no more was heard of Paul de Roustache, and the Countess's journey remained an unbroken secret, these questions of casuistry need not be raised. After all, is it for a man to ruin the tranquillity of a home for the selfish pleasure of a conscience quite at peace?
But as to the consciences of those two very ingenious young ladies, the Countess of Fieramondi, and her cousin, Countess Lucia, the problem is more difficult. The Countess never confessed, and Lucia never betrayed, the secret. Yet they were both devout! Indeed, the problem seems insoluble.
Stay, though! Perhaps the counsel and aid of the Bishop of Mesopotamia (in partibus) were invoked again. His lordship's position, that you must commit your sin before you can be absolved from the guilt of it, not only appears most logical in itself, but was, in the circumstances of the case, not discouraging.