"Oh, Florian!" said the girl, "try to tell the truth and be a gentleman, whether it be for you or against you, tell the truth."
"I'm not to mind a bit about my religion then?"
"Does your religion bid you tell a lie?" asked the Captain.
"I'm not telling a lie, I am just holding my tongue. A Catholic has a right to hold his tongue when he is among Protestants."
"Even to the ruin of his father," suggested the Captain.
"I don't want to ruin papa. He said he was going to turn—to turn me out of the house. I would go and drown myself in the lake if he did, or in one of those big dykes which divide the meadows. I am miserable among them—quite miserable. Edith never gives me any peace, day or night. She comes and sits in my bedroom, begging me to tell the truth. It ought to be enough when I say that I will hold my tongue. Papa can turn me out to drown myself if he pleases. Edith goes on cheating the words out of me till I don't know what I'm saying. If I am to be brought up to tell it all before the judge I shan't know what I have said before, or what I have not said."
"Nil conscire tibi," said the father, who had already taught his son so much Latin as that.
"But you did see the sluice gates torn down, and thrown back into the water?" said the Captain. Here Florian shook his head mournfully. "I understood you to acknowledge that you had seen the gates destroyed."
"I never said as much to you," said the boy.
"But you did to me," said Edith.