Bojedi’s argument therefore was not without plausibility, and all these facts that I have related he marshalled to his defense very ably and with intense feeling, as we sat there in the dark schoolhouse. It was plain that he had thought of all this before, and that before entering on this relationship he had argued long with his conscience as he now argued with me. But it was also plain that he argued in his defense and not his justification, and that he had allowed his reason to coerce his conscience. I replied that where there was nothing outward except a public announcement to distinguish marriage from an illicit relation, then the announcement became a duty binding on the conscience quite as much as a ceremony; and that if marriage be not so distinguished we have a society of “free love.” And again, as to the inwardness of the marriage relation, upon which he dwelt, that it implied always, whether with or without a ceremony, a sincere intention of _permanency_. I added: “From the regard that you have expressed for Antyandi you would probably desire that your present relation be permanent. But desire is not sufficient without expectation also; and you know as well as I do that when you leave Gaboon to return to your own people Antyandi will never go with you, and even if she should remain here she would not be true to you. You have therefore, with full knowledge, entered into a temporary relationship; which is no marriage in any sense that a Christian can admit.” As repentance is the chief act of man, so it is also the hardest. To make the admission of wrong to me was not so hard as to admit it to himself, with all its consequences. But at last the admission came: a moment later he was on his knees, in tears and sobs. He said: “It is not that I cannot give up Antyandi; it will be hard enough, but I’ll do it. But it is the wrong I have already done and the loss to myself that I feel. These two years while I have been teaching your school I have lived differently from all the other years of my life. Many things that I used to do I had stopped doing. I was happy because my heart was clean, and because the schoolboys all loved me and believed in me. And now all that I have built up in these two years is pulled down. And what will the boys think of me?” It would be cruel to repeat all that was said in that conversation. He wept until I felt that tears could do no more, and then I tried to quiet and comfort him. It was midnight when I left him.