‘Even I, who have had you for my wife, did not know the divinity of a woman’s love—until this miserable hour. My dearest, even to comfort you, I cannot add deliberate blasphemy to my sins. I cannot kneel, or pray to a Power in which my faith is of the weakest. Keep your gentle creed, dearest, adore your God of mercy—but I have hardened my heart against these things too long to find comfort in them now. My one glory, my one consolation, is the thought that, lost as I am, I have not fallen too low for your love. You will love me and hold by me, knowing my sin; and let my one merit be that in this dark hour I have not lied to you. I have not striven to outweigh that woman’s accusation by some fable which your love might accept.’ ‘No, Churchill, you have trusted me, and you shall find me worthy of your trust,’ she answered, bravely. ‘No act of mine shall ever betray you. And if you cannot pray—if God withholds the light of truth from you for a little while, my prayers shall ascend to Him like ever-burning incense. My intercession shall never cease. My faith shall never falter.’ He kissed her again without a word—too deeply moved for speech,—and then turned away from her and paced the room to and fro, while she went to her dressing-table, and looked wonderingly at the white wan face, which had beamed so brightly on her guests last night. She looked at herself thoughtfully, remembering that henceforward she had a part to act, and a fatal secret to keep. No wan looks, no tell-tale pallor must betray the horrid truth. ‘Madge,’ said her husband, presently, after two or three thoughtful turns up and down the room, ‘I have not one word to say to you in self-justification. I stand before you confessed, a sinner of the blackest dye. Yet you must not imagine that my whole life is of a colour with that one hideous act. It is not so. Till that hour my life had been blameless enough—more blameless perhaps than the career of one young man in twenty, in our modern civilization. Temptation to vulgar sins never assailed me. I was guiltless till that fatal hour in which my evil genius whispered the suggestion of a prize worth the price of crime. Macbeth was a brave and honourable soldier, you know, when the fatal sisters met him on the heath, and hissed their promise into his ear. And in that moment guilty hope seized upon his soul, and already in thought he was a murderer. Dearest, I have never been a profligate, or cheat, or liar, or coward. I have concentrated the wickedness which other men spread over a lifetime of petty sins in one great offence.’ ‘And that shall be forgiven,’ cried Madge, with a sublime air of conviction. ‘It shall, if you will but repent.’