“He might not repent,” said Sir Ronald; “there are some such cases; some crimes of which, instead of repenting, men simply grow proud. Do you think Charlotte Corday ever repented the murder of Marat? Tell me, do you think she did?”
Lady Hermione looked half puzzled for a few minutes.
“I can hardly tell; I should say she repented what she thought the need for killing him. Oh, Ronald, you are making me defend murder.”
“No, I am not; I simply say there are some murders of which I am sure men never repent. Therefore the life you give them would be mistaken clemency. If a life must be paid for a life, let the forfeit be laid down at once.”
She was looking at him with wondering eyes.
“Why, Ronald, how much you have thought of these things; you have studied them.”
“Yes,” he replied, quietly, “for many months after Clarice died I thought of nothing else. Men cannot judge as God can; we only see one-half, not always that, even that half not always clearly. Men know a crime has been committed; they do not know what has led up to it; the hidden motives, the great provocations, who knows anything of those save God himself?”
“But, Ronald,” she said, “surely you are defending crime! Darling, you are speaking without weighing your words. You do not believe that any amount of provocation can excuse murder?”
As she asked the question a dead silence fell on them. The whisper of the winds, the music of the birds, the ripple of the fountains, seemed to grow strangely hushed, as though every sweet impulse of nature waited to hear what he would say.
“You do not answer me,” she said, “yet, Ronald, my question is so plain. Do you think anything, any provocation, can excuse murder?”