"Run him through the body, do you suppose?--spitted him like a lark or a woodcock?--cut out his heart and made her eat it, as the man did to his wife in that fine old Norman story? No; I could have done any of them with pleasure if I had had the chance; with all our veneering and French polish, I think the tiger is only half dead in any of us; but I did not; I did none of them: I--prepare for bathos, please--I went out hunting; it was in winter, and, as misfortunes never come singly, I staked one of the best horses I ever was outside of: that diverted the current of my grief a little, I think." He speaks in a jeering, bantering tone, scourging himself with the rod of his own ridicule, as men are apt to do when they are conscious of having made signal asses of themselves in order to be beforehand with the world. "And she told you she was fond of you?" ejaculates Essie, raising her sweet face, sympathetic, indignant, glowing, towards him. "Scores of times--swore it. I suppose it is no harder to tell a lie a hundred times than once; _ce n'est que le premier pas qui coûte_. Tell me," he says, vehemently, leaning over her, and taking hold of her hand, as if hardly conscious of what he was doing--"you are a woman, you must know--tell me, is there no difference between truth and lies? have they both _exactly_ the same face? How is a man to tell them apart?" They are both speaking in a low key, almost under their breath, for fear of drawing down upon themselves the apparition of Sir Thomas in _déshabille_ and a blunderbuss. Their faces are close together; she can see the lines that climate and grief and passion have drawn about his eyes and mouth--can see the wild, honest anxiety looking through his soul's clear windows. "I--I--don't know," she answers, stammering, and shivering a little, half with fear at his vehemence, half with the strong contagion of his passion. "Do you ever tell untruths?" he asks, hurriedly, scanning her face with anxious eyes, that try to look through the mask of fair, white flesh, and see the heart underneath. "Don't be angry with me, but I sometimes fancy that you might." "_I!_ what do you mean?" snatching away her hand, and the angry blood rushing headlong to her cheeks. "Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?" Hazael was only the first of a long string who have asked that virtuously irate question. His countenance clears a little. "You must forgive me," he says, repentantly. "I suppose it is my own unlucky experience that has made me so suspicious; because my own day has been cloudy, I have wisely concluded upon the non-existence of the sun. But, come" (smiling a little), "one good turn deserves another: have you nothing to tell me in return for the long list of successes I have been confiding to you?"