“Good evening, Mr. Wentworth,” returned the joyful Roux, bending himself double in response to the easy and graceful bow with which Wentworth took leave.
They were all sitting in silence when he entered the library.
“There,” said he, seating himself with an air of grave satisfaction, “I’ve told the biggest whopper I ever told in my life, and if you only knew the virtuous glow and elevation of spirit I feel, you’d all go and tell one apiece to get your souls in the same condition. I’ve saved poor Roux from awful suffering, maybe death or madness, and I’d do it again if it was necessary. I never told a thundering lie before, but now I’ve done it, and done it well, and, when Sterne’s Accusing Angel bears it up to Heaven’s Chancery, if the Recording Angel doesn’t drop the biggest tear upon it his lachrymal glands can furnish, and blot it out forever, then I trust the Lord will turn him out of office for not understanding his duty, that’s all. I’m sorry if you blame me, Harrington, but there’s a happy man up-stairs to balance my side of the ledger.”
“I am not your conscience, Richard,” said Harrington, simply. “There are some truths that come from hell, and there are some lies that savor of heaven. I believe such falsehoods as yours to be among the latter. I sometimes almost wish I could tell them.”
The tears sprang to Richard’s eyes.
“Ah, Harrington,” said he, dejectedly, “it’s all very well for me to talk, but I feel poorer in spirit, for having said, even at such an urging, what was not true. You are a nobler man than I, for you would not lie for the man you would die for. No matter,” he added, recklessly, “I could not do otherwise.”
Harrington covered his eyes with his hand, and sat silent. Emily, in a dazed condition, looked slowly from one to the other. But Muriel, after a moment’s pause, rose from her seat, put her arms around Richard, and kissed him.
“I kiss away the good sin, dear Raffaello,” she said, with sad playfulness, caressing his curly head. “The brave and generous good sin.”
She stood by him a minute, with her hands resting on his head, and her beautiful, exalted face upturned, then noiselessly glided to her seat, and slowly sank down.