"Not the living law, let me tell you," answered Fabens. "Not away from God's law written on his heart, and threading the bone and marrow of his being. To get away from that law, he had first to escape the reach of God's hand, and run away from his own body and spirit. That was not so easy a feat, Mr. Colwell. "For the sake of our good social law, it may have been the person's duty to drag the poor man to light, and give him open justice; but he probably judged in that case, that the social law was better served and guarded in its spirit, if not in its letter, than if the offender had been exposed and imprisoned, to be let loose again with vengeance against the law, and against mankind. "I venture to assert that the treatment cured the error, and the borrower will not violate the law again; while he might have run riot in open crime, had he been openly dealt with. The majesty of the law then was vindicated, and the injury done the system was repaired. "And all that while he was amenable to God's living law traced all over and around his heart; and supposing he runs abroad and treads the green earth, and tastes the free air, and sees the bright sky; he is a prisoner still if he lives, and has not risen in goodness beyond sight of his sin; his body is his prison, his veins bind him down and his nerves bar him in. He senses his punishment keenly; it cuts to the quick, and he grieves, and trembles and gasps, whenever his fault comes to mind. Let him run at large; that law of God will follow him, watching with eyes from which no night can hide him; scourging with whips from which no shield defends." "Squire Fabens is a very forgiving man," said Mrs. Teezle. "He's _very_ forgiving, and I think he's right." "I claim no merit for that," said Fabens. "It is easy and right to forgive others. God himself forgives very freely. But the man has one enemy who may never forgive him in this world, and may not forgive him at Judgment till long after God has forgiven him. Though this will depend somewhat on his indolence or diligence in cultivating goodness and truth. That enemy is himself, and self-forgiveness is the most difficult, as it is the last to obtain." "That may be all so, but I'd a given him _some_, I swanny, if I had a ketched him in my grainery," said Colwell. "I never see it in Fabens's light afore," interrupted Teezle. "Nor I," "nor I," added others; and the discussion ended. Then a song was called for, and Colwell sang the 'Tea Song;' and Fanny Fabens sang the 'Whippoorwill,' and the very air attended, to hear the happy girl, and the insects were hushed to silence, and the moon leaned and listened, and the woods and the lake bandied back and to the chorus, and repeated, and prolonged her full and silvery sounds.