Though it was afar off that Peter followed his Master to the high-priest’s house, yet he did follow; and, we may be sure, with little thought, and still less intention, of denying Him even once. But as he sat by the fire and warmed himself, the identification of him by a certain maid as certainly a disciple of Christ was boldly met by the affirmation, or negation, “Woman, I know Him not.” The lie was uttered; the winged word of falsehood was on its way. And there an end, he perhaps hoped. But after a little while, another bystander recognised him, and asserted the damaging recognition, “Thou art also of them.” Another denial was the consequence: “Man, I am not.” An hour passed away, and Peter, in sullen misery and bewilderment, self-consciously an abject coward and confirmed liar, had to deny for the third time Him he had denied once and again. “Of a truth,” affirmed another of the mixed company, “this fellow also was with Him; for he is a Galilean.” And Peter said, “Man, I know not what thou sayest.” And then the cock crew. And then the Lord turned and looked upon Peter. And at that look—so upbraidingly expressive, so pathetically recalling recent protestations of unfaltering allegiance, and the concurrent prediction of lapse and abandonment—what could Peter do, but with shame and confusion of face, and with a heart full to bursting, go out, and weep bitterly. When he thought thereon, he wept: thought of the Master’s look, that recalled to him the vehement assurance of loyalty met by the foretelling of his fall. Thought, too, of the graduation of his denials; a first involving a second, and the second exacting yet a third. The third was the cost of the first. He had not counted the cost then. He had to pay it now. It was part of the prophet’s burden of woes against the doomed city, that she had “wearied herself with lies.” Easily uttered, they may multiply at a rate to trouble the teller of them, and weary him, if only with the necessity of inventing new ones to back the old. He must ever be devising fresh vouchers for his impaired and imperilled credit. He must continually be endorsing his forged notes, and forging fresh ones that will stand inspection. _Fallacia alia aliam trudit._ And this is weary work. “En quel gouffre de soins et de perplexité Nous jette une action faite sans equité.” And as with actions, so with words. The same speaker of the foregoing couplet utters elsewhere the lament,— “Ma fourbe est découverte. Oh! que la vérité Se peut cacher longtemps avec difficulté!”