"And I've bought our passages for to-morrow. I cannot let her go without some sort of good-bye." "Give the tickets to me. I can make use of them. How much are they? Let's see." The calculation made and the money passed across, I said abruptly,-- "Now supposing we go and see your wife." "You have saved my life," he said hoarsely, pressing my hand as we rose. "I don't know about that," I said inwardly; "but I do hope I have saved your wife." As I thought of that, a fear occurred to me. "Look here," I said, as we strolled towards the Twelve Golden-Haired, "I hope you have no silly notions about confession, about telling the literal truth and so on. Because I want you to promise me that you will lie stoutly to your wife about Sylvia Joy. You must swear the whole thing has been platonic. It's the only chance for your happiness. Your wife, no doubt, will lure you on to confession by saying that she doesn't mind this, that, and the other, so long as you don't keep it from her; and no doubt she will mean it till you have confessed. But, however good their theories, women by nature cannot help confusing body and soul, and what to a man is a mere fancy of the senses, to them is a spiritual tragedy. Promise me to lie stoutly on this point. It is, I repeat, the only chance for your future happiness. As has been wisely said, a lie in time saves nine; and such a lie as I advise is but one of the higher forms of truth. Such lying, indeed, is the art of telling the truth. The truth is that you love her body, soul, and spirit; any accidental matter which should tend to make her doubt that would be the only real lie. Promise me, won't you?" "Yes, I will lie," said Orlando. "Well, there she is," I said; "and God bless you both." CHAPTER X IN WHICH ONCE MORE I BECOME OCCUPIED IN MY OWN AFFAIRS During a pause in my matrimonial lecture, Orlando had written a little farewell note to Sylvia,--a note which, of course, I didn't read, but which it is easy to imagine "wild with all regret." This I undertook to have delivered to her the same night, and promised to call upon her on the morrow, further to illuminate the situation, and to offer her every consolation in my power. To conclude the history of Orlando and his Rosalind, I may say that I saw them off from Yellowsands by the early morning coach. There was a soft brightness in their faces, as though rain had fallen in the night; but it was the warm sweet rain of joy that brings the flowers, and is but sister to the sun. They are, at the time of my writing, quite old friends of mine, and both have an excessive opinion of my wisdom and good-nature. "That lie," Orlando once said to me long after, "was the truest thing I ever said in my life,"--a remark which may not give the reader a very exalted idea of his general veracity.