“I can reconsider nothing.” Judith shook her head and looked long at him out of her large eyes. “My heart tells me that all is not well with you,” she said. Her brother gazed at her with a smile of melancholy tenderness. “Judith,” he answered her, “why worry yourself over my future. A man may often repent; he can rarely alter. By my own deeds I have made this match inevitable. You can only pain me by suggesting impossibilities. I have incurred a debt—a debt heavier than you can guess. I am happier in doing my duty as a man of honor than I should be in playing the craven. You have the truth.” Judith hid her eyes from him under her lashes. “This is a sad world,” she said. “Perhaps.” “Men pledge themselves to an error and spend their blood in justifying it.” “What of sincerity?” “True sincerity never errs,” she said. “It looks ahead and deceives not the future. The greatest strength is that which emancipates itself from a moral lie.” “Well and good,” he answered her; “but sheer egotism is unpardonable under certain circumstances.” “It is the false egotism that in the beginning shackles the true.” “Then must the true try to remedy the false. We all err. Errors are the illegitimate offspring of the soul; as their parents, we must maintain them. They are ours and of us. The laws of society saddle us with the responsibility. My dear girl, say no more.” Thus ended Judith’s pleading with her brother ineffectually, though not for lack of eloquence or ardor. Possibly the man knew himself a fool in the deep recesses of his heart. When present in the flesh, his betrothed overpowered him with her perilous splendor. She poured her sensuous magic upon his soul, and, like Tannhäuser, he knelt before her impotent and helpless. The hashish of her beauty had lulled his deeper self to sleep. Matters mundane were moving on apace. John Strong had draughted a company of craftsmen into the antique rooms and galleries of The Friary. Tapestries were being spread, walls garnished, friezes gilded, rich fabrics wafted into its dusky rooms. The merchant’s coffers ran gold. Truly the house was a haunt for lovers, consecrated by all the charters of romance. September waited to hear the bells of Saltire pealing for the pair. Italy was to receive them, passionate pilgrims, treading the earth to the tune of love. Ophelia, gracious maid, had wandered from Arcady to the marts of the City of Lud to spend a novitiate amid fabrics from the loom. Her large eyes sparkled amid the splendors of Bond Street, and glib-tongued ’prentices bowed before her feet. She was very radiant, very fair, very pleasurable. Many a delectable dandy coveted unconsciously the lot of Gabriel Strong. XIII