Perrote disappeared, but Sir Godfrey Foljambe stood where she had left him. Over his pleasure-chilled, gold-hardened conscience a breath from Heaven was sweeping, such a breath as he had often felt in earlier years, but which very rarely came to him now. Like the soft toll of a passing bell, the terrible words rang in his ears with their accent of hopeless pity—“Thou fool! Thou fool!” Would God, some day, in that upper world, say that to him?
The sound was so vivid and close that he actually glanced round to see if any one was there to hear but himself. But he was alone. Only God had heard them, and God forgets nothing—a thought as dreadful to His enemies as it is warmly comforting to His children. Alas, for those to whom the knowledge that God has His eye upon them is only one of terror!
Yet there is one thing that God does forget. He tells us that He forgets the forgiven sin. “As far as the sun-rising is from the sun-setting (Note 1), so far hath He removed our transgressions from us”—“Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.” But as it has been well said, “When God pardons sin, He drops it out of His memory into that of the pardoned sinner.” We cannot forget it, because He has done so.
For Sir Godfrey Foljambe the thought of an omniscient eye and ear was full of horror. He turned round, went downstairs, and going to a private closet in his own study, where medicines were kept, drank off one of the largest doses of brandy which he had ever taken at once. It was not a usual thing to do, for brandy was not then looked on as a beverage, but a medicine. But Sir Godfrey wanted something potent, to still those soft chimes which kept saying, “Thou fool!” Anything to get away from God!
Note 1. This is really the Hebrew of Psalm 103, verse 12. The infidel objection, therefore, that since “east” and “west” meet, the verse has no meaning, is untenable as concerns the inspired original. It is only valid as a criticism on the English translation.