"I am happy to see, Raoul, that you think so correctly on this point. Hold to your creed, my dear boy, for there are who shall try ere long to shake it. But be sure that is the creed of honor. But, although I think La Rochederrien disgraced himself even in this, it was not for this only that I termed him, as I deem him, the very vilest and most infamous of mankind. For when he had led that poor lady into sin; when she had surrendered herself up wholly to his honor; when she had placed the greatest trust—although a guilty trust, I admit—in his faith and integrity that one human being can place in another, the base dog betrayed her. He boasted of her weakness, of Kerguelen's dishonor, of his own infamy."
"And did not they to whom he boasted of it," exclaimed the noble boy, his face flushing fiery red with excitement and indignation, "spurn him at once from their presence, as a thing unworthy and beyond the pale of law."
"No, Raoul, they laughed at him, applauded his gallant success, and jeered at the Lord of Kerguelen."
"Great heaven! and these were gentlemen!"
"They were called such, at least; gentlemen by name and descent they were assuredly, but as surely not right gentlemen at heart. Many of them, however, in cooler moments, spoke of the traitor and the braggart with the contempt and disgust he merited. Some friend of Kerguelen's heard what had passed, and deemed it his duty to inform him. The most unhappy husband called the seducer to the field, wounded him mortally, and—to increase yet more his infamy—even in the agony of death the slave confessed the whole, and craved forgiveness like a dog. Confessed the woman's crime—you mark me, Raoul!—had he died mute, or died even with a falsehood in his mouth, as I think he was bound to do in such extremity, affirming her innocence with his last breath, he had saved her, and perhaps spared her wretched lord the misery of knowing certainly the depth of his dishonor."
The boy pondered for a moment or two without making any answer; and although he was evidently not altogether satisfied, probably would not have again spoken, had not his father, who read what was passing in his mind, asked him what it was that he desired to know further.
Raoul smiled at perceiving how completely his father understood him, and then said at once, without pause or hesitation—
"I understand you to say, sir, that you thought the wretched man of whom we spoke was bound, under the extremity in which he stood, to die with a falsehood in his mouth. Can a gentleman ever be justified in saying the thing that is not? Much more can it be his bounden duty to do so?"
"Unquestionably, as a rule of general conduct, he cannot. Truth is the soul of honor; and without truth, honor cannot exist. But this is a most intricate and tangled question. It never can arise without presupposing the commission of one guilty act—one act which no good or truly moral man would commit at all. It is, therefore, scarcely worth our while to examine it. But I do say, on my deliberate and grave opinion, that if a woman, previously innocent and pure, have sacrificed her honor to a man, that man is bound to sacrifice every thing, his life without a question, and I think his truth also, in order to preserve her character, so far as he can, scathless. But we will speak no more of this. It is an odious subject, and one of which, I trust, you, Raoul, will never have the sad occasion to consider."
"Oh! never, father, never! I," cried the ingenuous boy, "I must first lose my senses, and become a madman."