"Yes! He owed you a life. Only by giving back in another way what he had robbed you of could he learn his lesson and cleanse his soul."
"Where is the life that has been given?" sneered Narvaez-Hardwick. "There is Enistor dying. A valuable gift indeed."
"Montrose did not know that Enistor was fatally injured by his fall. So far as he was aware he gave back what he had taken and at the risk of losing his present life unjustly. The sheet is clean."
"Sophistry! Sophistry! You are trying to make black white."
"Not so. Man is judged by his intention in whatever he does. Thought precedes both words and acts, so if the first be right the two last cannot be wrong."
"We are here to listen to a sermon, it appears," said the other man mockingly. "You are woefully dull."
Eberstein ignored the spiteful speech to advance towards the bed. "Enistor, you are about to pass away from the physical plane to reap as you have sown, and painful will be the harvesting of your sheaves."
"Tares he should call them," mocked Narvaez-Hardwick contemptuously.
"Not all tares. Always the germs of good have been in your victim."
"A victim! I?" cried the Squire, pride and indignation lighting up his faded eyes, to the delight of his dark master, who approved of the sinister quality.