“Don’t you think, bishop,” I asked, “that it would be better for you to leave us? If anything were to go wrong, it would be intolerable that your name should even be mentioned.”
“It is certainly disagreeable,” he replied; “it is intensely painful to deceive these men in the execution of their duty. We are unquestionably aiding a criminal to escape, in fact ‘compounding a felony.’ Nevertheless, my conscience is quite definite in the matter and approves of what we are doing. It is the old question, Davoren, of the difference between crime and sin. The crime for which the law would put this man to death was not a sin. It was manifestly a righteous action. It was an impulse which no decent man would have resisted. Of course, society could not exist if everyone were to be allowed to decide such questions. But I claim as much right to judge of wickedness as a judge has to decide questions of crime. But if I left you now it would be cowardice, and my conscience would not acquit me.”
“But how terribly the world would misjudge you!”
“That is not a thing from which a Christian should shrink,” the bishop observed quietly, and so closed the discussion.
Edmund helped himself to a glass of wine.
“It will look more natural when they come in,” he said, “as if we were only just finishing dinner.”
I was glad to follow his example, for in truth the sudden development of our perplexities, the strange manner of its announcement, and the necessity for sudden action had left me shaken in mind and body and, I fear, a little tremulous.
As Edmund lit a cigarette the hall-door bell was rung.
CHAPTER XVII
HOW CAPTAIN WELFARE RETURNED
WE waited but a few moments in silence before Bates ushered in our local constable, an old friend of mine, and one who had a professional veneration for my position as a County Magistrate, who sat in judgment alike on vagrants and poachers, and those haughty contemners of the law who exceed the speed limit in expensive motor-cars.