You will wonder how the facts were discovered. After his death a sealed paper disclosing them was found, with the inscription, “_Not to be opened during my daughter’s life_, _and if she should have children or a husband who may survive her_, _it is to be burnt_.” She had no children, and when she died as an old woman, her husband also being dead, the seal was broken.’ ‘Probably,’ said Madge, ‘nobody except his daughter believed he was not a thief. For her sake he endured the imputation of common larceny, and was content to leave the world with only a remote chance that he would ever be justified.’ ‘I wonder,’ said Frank, ‘that he did not admit that it was his daughter who had taken the handkerchief, and excuse her on the ground of her ailment.’ ‘He could not do that,’ replied Madge. ‘The object of his life was to make as little of the ailment as possible. What would have been the effect on her if she had been made aware of its fearful consequences? Furthermore, would he have been believed? And then—awful thought, the child might have suspected him of attempting to shield himself at her expense! Do you think you could be capable of such sacrifice, Mr Palmer?’ Frank hesitated. ‘It would—’ ‘The question is not fair, Madge,’ said Mrs Hopgood, interrupting him. ‘You are asking for a decision when all the materials to make up a decision are not present. It is wrong to question ourselves in cold blood as to what we should do in a great strait; for the emergency brings the insight and the power necessary to deal with it. I often fear lest, if such-and-such a trial were to befall me, I should miserably fail. So I should, furnished as I now am, but not as I should be under stress of the trial.’ ‘What is the use,’ said Clara, ‘of speculating whether we can, or cannot, do this or that? It _is_ now an interesting subject for discussion whether the lie was a sin.’ ‘No,’ said Madge, ‘a thousand times no.’ ‘Brief and decisive. Well, Mr Palmer, what do you say?’ ‘That is rather an awkward question. A lie is a lie.’ ‘But not,’ broke in Madge, vehemently, ‘to save anybody whom you love. Is a contemptible little two-foot measuring-tape to be applied to such an action as that?’ ‘The consequences of such a philosophy, though, my dear,’ said Mrs Hopgood, ‘are rather serious. The moment you dispense with a fixed standard, you cannot refuse permission to other people to dispense with it also.’ ‘Ah, yes, I know all about that, but I am not going to give up my instinct for the sake of a rule. Do what you feel to be right, and let the rule go hang. Somebody, cleverer in logic than we are, will come along afterwards and find a higher rule which we have obeyed, and will formulate it concisely.’