"I can't part with you, Dan. I won't believe the reason is beyond explanation. Be honest with me—absolutely. Tell me why this idea has come to you. You're at a point far more vital in your career than you think for. Don't leave any shadow or uncertainty. Be dead straight about it, Dan."
Brendon did not answer, but he struggled fiercely with himself. He was a great-hearted man, and now, within sound of his master's voice, in sight of his earnest eyes, his reason dwindled somewhat.
Suddenly he blurted out the truth.
"Jarratt Weekes told me a while ago that you saw too much of Sarah Jane. I believe that he said it without malice. He thought so—like as not others do."
A great expiration left the lungs of Woodrow.
"Too much of her! No, Dan—not too much of her—not enough; but too much of this dirty little village and the mean-minded vermin that live in it! Nobody could see too much of Sarah Jane—any more than they could see too much of the sun in the sky, or hear too much of the song of the birds. I don't see enough of her—or of you. How glad I am you had the pluck to speak!"
"One thing I must ask of you—to take no step against Weekes. I've punished him. I nearly broke his neck when he said it. I knew 'twas a lie; but, of course, I can't live where 'tis possible to tell such lies."
"You'll never get beyond the reach of falsehood in this world, Dan. Lying is woven into the fabric of all human life—part of the regular pattern. We should be like the beasts that perish if we did not lie. Civilized existence rests on a bedrock of lying. 'Tis the cement that keeps every state together; the first necessity of conscious existence. Only Nature can work without falsehood. The lie is as old as human language. If men said what they thought, the world's work would stand still. Try it—yet I wouldn't ask you to do that. Why should I wish my best friend to have nought but enemies?"
"I won't live where 'tis possible to tell this lie," repeated Brendon.
"If you believed the lie—then I should be the first to ask you to be gone. Happily you don't. I've not got much heart, Brendon; but the little I have would break if I thought you did not care for me. If there is a thing that I've hoped and planned and rejoiced to plan in this fading life of mine, it is your future."