“Who said it then?”
“The devil.”
“The devil he did! And who ought to know better, I should like to ask!”
“Every man ought to know better. And besides, it is not what a man will or will not do, but what a man ought or ought not to do!”
“Ah, there you have me, I suppose! But there are some things so damned difficult, that a man must be very sure of his danger before he can bring himself to do them!”
“That may be, my lord: in the present case, however, you must be aware that the danger is not to the bodily health alone; these drugs undermine the moral nature as well!”
“I know it: I cannot be counted guilty of many things; they were done under the influence of hellish concoctions. It was not I, but these things working in me—on my brain, making me see things in a false light! This will be taken into account when I come to be judged—if there be such a thing as a day of judgment.”
“One thing I am sure of,” said Donal, “that your lordship will have fair play. At first, not quite knowing what you were about, you may not have been much to blame; but afterwards, when you knew that you were putting yourself in danger of doing you did not know what, you were as much to blame as if you made a Frankenstein-demon, and turned him loose on the earth, knowing yourself utterly unable to control him.”
“And is not that what the God you believe in does every day?”
“My lord, the God I believe in has not lost his control over either of us.”