"Of course not," the Bishop rashly asserted.
"That depends," the lawyer said, cautiously.
"If I signed a contract," Ideala explained, "and found out afterwards that those who induced me to become a party to it had kept me in ignorance of the most important clause in it, so that I really did not know to what I was committing myself, would you call that a moral contract?"
"I should say that people had not dealt uprightly with you," the Bishop answered; "but there might be nothing in the clause to which you could object."
"But suppose there was something in the clause to which I very strongly objected, something of which my conscience disapproved, something that was repugnant to my whole moral nature; and suppose I was forced by the law to fulfil it nevertheless, should you say that was a moral contract? Should you not say that in acting against my conscience I acted immorally?"
We all fell into the trap, and looked an encouraging assent.
"And in that case," she continued, "I suppose my duty would be to evade the law, and act on my conscience?"
The Bishop looked puzzled.
"I should only be doing what the early martyrs had to do," she added.
"That is true," he rejoined, with evident relief.