“ ‘Wretched man!’ said I; ‘what could induce him thus to destroy body and soul by one and the same act!’
“ ‘Sir,’ said the Doctor, learnedly enough and magisterially, ‘we must not judge any man.’
“ ‘True,’ I replied; ‘it is just possible that, as he was falling, he repented of his sin: inter pontem et fontem, as they say. But this is extremely improbable; since the last act of the man of which we have any means of judging was a mortal sin and deserving of damnation.’
“ ‘But,’ said the Doctor, ‘we cannot know whether this was such a sin.’
“ ‘Nay,’ I replied, ‘this is not left to our judgment; it is God's own verdict, when He forbids us under pain of hell to kill any one: a prohibition which applies especially to the killing of ourselves, for charity begins from oneself.’
“The good Doctor being here caught, said no more on this point, but turned the subject, and said, smiling, ‘Gentlemen must not dispute on theological matters.’
“ ‘True,’ said I, ‘we do not make profession of knowing theology; but at least we ought to know the law of God, though our profession is to play at cards.’
“The lady with whom I was playing, hearing him speak to me in this way, could scarce keep her countenance, thinking within herself what he would have said if he had known who it was he was answering. The Doctor, however, did not stay much longer. Whether he departed sooner than he at first intended, I know not; but I know that we much preferred his room to his company.”
XXIV.
“I must now return to London, and relate what happened after John Lilly was taken, and the gentleman imprisoned with whom I rented my London house. This house being now closed to me, I sought out another, but on a different plan. I did not now join in partnership with any one, because I was unwilling to be in the house of one known to be a Catholic. I managed that this new house should be hired by a nephew of Master Roger Lee, whom with his wife I had reconciled to the Catholic Church; and, as he was not known to be a Catholic, the house was entirely free from all suspicion. I had the use of this house for three years, and during that time it was not once searched; nor even before the Queen's death, though there were many general searches made, and the prisons were choked with Catholics, did they ever come to this house.