"Too much of her! No, Dan--not too much of her--not enough; but too much of this dirty little village and the mean-minded vermin that live in it! Nobody could see too much of Sarah Jane--any more than they could see too much of the sun in the sky, or hear too much of the song of the birds. I don't see enough of her--or of you. How glad I am you had the pluck to speak!" "One thing I must ask of you--to take no step against Weekes. I've punished him. I nearly broke his neck when he said it. I knew 'twas a lie; but, of course, I can't live where 'tis possible to tell such lies." "You'll never get beyond the reach of falsehood in this world, Dan. Lying is woven into the fabric of all human life--part of the regular pattern. We should be like the beasts that perish if we did not lie. Civilized existence rests on a bedrock of lying. 'Tis the cement that keeps every state together; the first necessity of conscious existence. Only Nature can work without falsehood. The lie is as old as human language. If men said what they thought, the world's work would stand still. Try it--yet I wouldn't ask you to do that. Why should I wish my best friend to have nought but enemies?" "I won't live where 'tis possible to tell this lie," repeated Brendon. "If you believed the lie--then I should be the first to ask you to be gone. Happily you don't. I've not got much heart, Brendon; but the little I have would break if I thought you did not care for me. If there is a thing that I've hoped and planned and rejoiced to plan in this fading life of mine, it is your future." "My future! That's God's work to plan--not yours." "I know it is. But in one of these conversations I held with your wife, which have shocked this low-minded rascal, she said a fine thing to me, Dan. She said, 'All good things come from my man's God. You can't have no good without His hand be in it. And men and women are His messengers to carry the goodness of God up and down in the world and show it.'" "That's true enough. Nothing new, surely?" "It was new to me. If there's a God, Daniel, He is a good God. I'll grant you so much. And if good comes to any man, 'tis his God that sends it. I suppose you believe that?" "Where else can good come from? Man's heart don't imagine it. Man's heart don't breed it." "Then you're answered, for into my heart has long since come the wish to do you good. I desire it, and I am thankful that I can perform it. I wish you to have power, because you understand how to use power wisely; and content, because you are the only man I ever met who understood that content is higher than happiness." "You've done all you could, and I have thanked you." "And thanked your God, I warrant?" "Yes--Him first." "It's good to thank Him, I suppose?" "It's right--it's natural--'tis all we can give Him--our thanks and worship."