“I can hardly tell; I should say she repented what she thought the need for killing him. Oh, Ronald, you are making me defend murder.” “No, I am not; I simply say there are some murders of which I am sure men never repent. Therefore the life you give them would be mistaken clemency. If a life must be paid for a life, let the forfeit be laid down at once.” She was looking at him with wondering eyes. “Why, Ronald, how much you have thought of these things; you have studied them.” “Yes,” he replied, quietly, “for many months after Clarice died I thought of nothing else. Men cannot judge as God can; we only see one-half, not always that, even that half not always clearly. Men know a crime has been committed; they do not know what has led up to it; the hidden motives, the great provocations, who knows anything of those save God himself?” “But, Ronald,” she said, “surely you are defending crime! Darling, you are speaking without weighing your words. You do not believe that any amount of provocation can excuse murder?” As she asked the question a dead silence fell on them. The whisper of the winds, the music of the birds, the ripple of the fountains, seemed to grow strangely hushed, as though every sweet impulse of nature waited to hear what he would say. “You do not answer me,” she said, “yet, Ronald, my question is so plain. Do you think anything, any provocation, can excuse murder?” Again the strange silence--in after years it returned to her--and she knew it had been more eloquent than any words. “I cannot answer you,” he replied, after a time. “I have thought of it, but my mind has never been quite clear. Yes, I think some provocation, some treachery so great as to excuse murder.” “Oh, Ronald, that is a dangerous doctrine.” “Suppose,” he said, “I had lived in India at the time of the mutiny, and I had found some black fiend with his hand on your throat, or with my baby’s golden head just cloven in twain, I would have slain him with less remorse than I crush this leaf between my fingers.” “But that,” she argued, “would be self-defence, not murder. Murder seems to me to be the cowardly death that creeps in silence, in treachery, and darkness--that sends the victim’s soul, with one horrible pang, straight into the presence of its Maker! Oh, Ronald, why are we speaking of such things? Poor Clarice! it seems to me I have never realized her terrible fate until now.” Sir Ronald rose from his seat. “Look how we have saddened the children, Hermione. Here is Harry, grave as a judge, and little Clare getting ready to cry. My darling, let the dead past be. Let us live in the sunny present.” “It was Kenelm’s fault,” she said, half apologetically, “not mine. How strangely we have been talking! Every morning and night, when the little ones say their prayers, I shall make them add: ‘Please, God, teach those who suffer to forget.’” “Papa,” cried a childish voice, “you said I should ride to-day.”