THE ten days glided swiftly away: and, the day beforethe great party was to take place, Arthur proposed that we should strolldown to the Hall, in time for afternoon-tea.

`Hadn't you better go alone?' I suggested. `Surely I shallbe very much de trop?'

`Well, it'll be a kind of experiment,' he said. `Fiatexperimentum in corpore vili!' he added, with a graceful bow of mock politenesstowards the unfortunate victim. `You see I shall have to bear the sight,to-morrow night, of my lady-love making herself agreeable to everybodyexcept the right person, and I shall bear the agony all the better if wehave a dress-rehearsal beforehand!'

`My part in the play being, apparently, that of the samplewrong person?'

`Well, no,' Arthur said musingly, as we set forth: `there'sno such part in a regular company. "Heavy Father"? That wo'n't do: that'sfilled already. "Singing Chambermaid"? Well, the "First Lady" doubles thatpart. "Comic Old Man"? You're not comic enough. After all, I'm afraid there'sno part for you but the "Well-dressed Villain": only,' with a criticalsideglance, `I'm a leetle uncertain about the dress!'

We found Lady Muriel alone, the Earl having gone out tomake a call, and at once resumed old terms of intimacy, in the shady arbourwhere the tea-things seemed to be always waiting. The only novelty in thearrangements (one which Lady Muriel seemed to regard as entirely a matterof course), was that two of the chairs were placed quite close together,side by side. Strange to say, I was not invited to occupy either of them!

`We have been arranging, as we came along, about letter-writing,'Arthur began. `He will want to know how we're enjoying our Swiss tour:and of course we must pretend we are?'

`Of course,' she meekly assented.

`And the skeleton-in-the-cupboard--' I suggested.

`--is always a difficulty,' she quickly put in, `whenyou're travelling about, and when there are no cupboards in the hotels.However, ours is a very portable one; and will be neatly packed, in a niceleather case--'

`But please don't think about writing,' I said, `whenyou've anything more attractive on hand. I delight in reading letters,but I know well how tiring it is to write them.'

`It is, sometimes,' Arthur assented. `For instance, whenyou're very shy of the person you have to write to.'

`Does that show itself in the letter?' Lady Muriel enquired.`Of course, when I hear any one talking--you, for instance--I can see howdesperately shy he is! But can you see that in a letter?'

`Well, of course, when you hear any one talk fluently--you,for instance--you can see how desperately un-shy she is--not to say saucy!But the shyest and most intermittent talker must seem fluent in letter-writing.He may have taken half-an-hour to compose his second sentence; but thereit is, close after the first!'

`Then letters don't express all that they might express?'

`That's merely because our system of letter-writing isincomplete. A shy writer ought to be able to show that he is so. Why shouldn'the make pauses in writing, just as he would do in speaking? He might leaveblank spaces--say half a page at a time. And a very shy girl--if thereis such a thing--might write a sentence on the first sheet of her letter--thenput in a couple of blank sheets--then a sentence on the fourth sheet: andso on.'

`I quite foresee that we--I mean this clever little boyand myself--' Lady Muriel said to me, evidently with the kind wish to bringme into the conversation, `--are going to become famous--of course allour inventions are common property now--for a new Code of Rules for Letter-writing!Please invent some more, little boy!'

`Well, another thing greatly needed, little girl, is someway of expressing that we don't mean anything.'

`Explain yourself, little boy! Surely you can find nodifficulty in expressing a total absence of meaning?'

`I mean that you should be able, when you don't mean athing to be taken seriously, to express that wish. For human nature isso constituted that whatever you write seriously is taken as a joke, andwhatever you mean as a joke is taken seriously! At any rate, it is so inwriting to a lady!'

`Ah! you're not used to writing to ladies!' Lady Murielremarked, leaning back in her chair, and gazing thoughtfully into the sky.`You should try.'

`Very good,' said Arthur `How many ladies may I beginwriting to? As many as I can count on the fingers of both hands?'

`As many as you can count on the thumbs of one hand!'his lady-love replied with much severity. `What a very naughty little boyhe is! Isn't he?' (with an appealing glance at me).

`He's a little fractious,' I said. `Perhaps he's cuttinga tooth.' While to myself I said `How exactly like Sylvie talking to Bruno!'

`He wants his tea.' (The naughty little boy volunteeredthe information.) `He's getting very tired, at the mere prospect of thegreat party to-morrow!'

`Then he shall have a good rest before-hand!' she soothinglyreplied. `The tea isn't made yet. Come, little boy, lean well back in yourchair, and think about nothing--or about me, whichever you prefer!'

`All the same, all the same!' Arthur sleepily murmured,watching her with loving eyes, as she moved her chair away to the tea table,and began to make the tea. `Then he'll wait for his tea, like a good, patientlittle boy!'

`Shall I bring you the London Papers?' said Lady Muriel.`I saw them lying on the table as I came out, but my father said therewas nothing in them, except that horrid murder-trial.' (Society was justthen enjoying its daily thrill of excitement in studying the details ofa specially sensational murder in a thieves' den in the East of London.)

`I have no appetite for horrors,' Arthur replied. `ButI hope we have learned the lesson they should teach us--though we are veryapt to read it backwards!'

`You speak in riddles,' said Lady Muriel. `Please explainyourself. See now,' suiting the action to the word, `I am sitting at yourfeet, just as if you were a second Gamaliel! Thanks, no.' (This was tome, who had risen to bring her chair back to its former place.) `Pray don'tdisturb yourself. This tree and the grass make a very nice easy-chair.What is the lesson that one always reads wrong?'

Arthur was silent for a minute. `I would like to be clearwhat it is I mean,' he said, slowly and thoughtfully, `before I say anythingto you--because you think about it.'

Anything approaching to a compliment was so unusual anutterance for Arthur, that it brought a flush of pleasure to her cheek,as she replied `It is you, that give me the ideas to think about.'

`One's first thought,' Arthur proceeded, `in reading anythingspecially vile or barbarous, as done by a fellow-creature, is apt to bethat we see a new depth of Sin revealed beneath us: and we seem to gazedown into that abyss from some higher ground, far apart from it.'

`I think I understand you now. You mean that one oughtto think--not "God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are"--but "God,be merciful to me also, who might be, but for Thy grace, a sinner as vileas he!"'

`No,' said Arthur. `I meant a great deal more than that.'

She looked up quickly, but checked herself, and waitedin silence.

`One must begin further back, I think. Think of some otherman, the same age as this poor wretch. Look back to the time when theyboth began life--before they had sense enough to know Right from Wrong.Then, at any rate, they were equal in God's sight?'

She nodded assent.

`We have, then, two distinct epochs at which we may contemplatethe two men whose lives we are comparing. At the first epoch they are,so far as moral responsibility is concerned, on precisely the same footing:they are alike incapable of doing right or wrong. At the second epoch theone man--I am taking an extreme case, for contrast--has won the esteemand love of all around him: his character is stainless, and his name willbe held in honour hereafter: the other man's history is one unvaried recordof crime, and his life is at last forfeited to the outraged laws of hiscountry. Now what have been the causes, in each case, of each man's conditionbeing what it is at the second epoch? They are of two kinds--one actingfrom within, the other from without. These two kinds need to be discussedseparately--that is, if I have not already tired you with my prosing?'

`On the contrary,' said Lady Muriel, `it is a specialdelight to me to have a question discussed in this way--analysed and arrangedso that one can understand it. Some books, that profess to argue out aquestion, are to me intolerably wearisome, simply because the ideas areall arranged haphazard--a sort of "first come, first served".'

`You are very encouraging,' Arthur replied, with a pleasedlook. `The causes, acting from within, which make a man's character whatit is at any given moment, are his successive acts of volition--that is,his acts of choosing whether he will do this or that.'

`We are to assume the existence of Free-Will?' I said,in order to have that point made quite clear.

`If not,' was the quiet reply, `cadit quaestio: and Ihave no more to say.'

`We will assume it!' the rest of the audience--the majority,I may say, looking at it from Arthur's point of view--imperiously proclaimed.The orator proceeded.

`The causes, acting from without, are his surroundings--whatMr. Herbert Spencer calls his "environment". Now the point I want to makeclear is this, that a man is responsible for his act of choosing, but notresponsible for his environment. Hence, if these two men make, on somegiven occasion, when they are exposed to equal temptation, equal effortsto resist and to choose the right, their condition, in the sight of God,must be the same. If He is pleased in the one case, so will He be in theother; if displeased in the one case, so also in the other.'

`That is so, no doubt: I see it quite clearly,' Lady Murielput in.

`And yet, owing to their different environments, the onemay win a great victory over the temptation, while the other falls intosome black abyss of crime.'

`But surely you would not say those men were equally guiltyin the sight of God?'

`Either that,' said Arthur, `or else I must give up mybelief in God's perfect justice. But let me put one more case, which willshow my meaning even more forcibly. Let the one man be in a high socialposition--the other, say, a common thief. Let the one be tempted to sometrivial act of unfair dealing--something which he can do with the absolutecertainty that it will never be discovered--something which he can withperfect ease forbear from doing--and which he distinctly knows to be asin. Let the other be tempted to some terrible crime--as men would considerit--but under an almost overwhelming pressure of motives--of course notquite overwhelming, as that would destroy all responsibility. Now, in thiscase, let the second man make a greater effort at resistance than the first.Also suppose both to fall under the temptation--I say that the second manis, in God's sight, less guilty than the other.'

Lady Muriel drew a long breath. `It upsets all one's ideasof Right and Wrong--just at first! Why, in that dreadful murder-trial,you would say, I suppose, that it was possible that the least guilty manin the Court was the murderer, and that possibly the judge who tried him,by yielding to the temptation of making one unfair remark, had committeda crime outweighing the criminal's whole career!'

`Certainly I should,' Arthur firmly replied. `It soundslike a paradox, I admit. But just think what a grievous sin it must be,in God's sight, to yield to some very slight temptation, which we couldhave resisted with perfect ease, and to do it deliberately, and in thefull light of God's Law. What penance can atone for a sin like that?'

`I ca'n't reject your theory,' I said. `But how it seemsto widen the possible area of Sin in the world!'

`Is that so?' Lady Muriel anxiously enquired.

`Oh, not so, not so!' was the eager reply. `To me it seemsto clear away much of the cloud that hangs over the world's history. Whenthis view first made itself clear to me, I remember walking out into thefields, repeating to myself that line of Tennyson "There seemed no roomfor sense of wrong!" The thought, that perhaps the real guilt of the humanrace was infinitely less than I fancied it--that the millions, whom I hadthought of as sunk in hopeless depth of sin, were perhaps, in God's sight,scarcely sinning at all--was more sweet than words can tell! Life seemedmore bright and beautiful, when once that thought had come! "A livelieremerald twinkles in the grass, A purer sapphire melts into the sea!" 'His voice trembled as he concluded, and the tears stood in his eyes.

Lady Muriel shaded her face with her hand, and was silentfor a minute. `It is a beautiful thought,' she said, looking up at last.`Thank you--Arthur, for putting it into my head!'

The Earl returned in time to join us at tea, and to giveus the very unwelcome tidings that a fever had broken out in the littleharbour-town that lay below us--a fever of so malignant a type that, thoughit had only appeared a day or two ago, there were already more than a dozendown in it, two or three of whom were reported to be in imminent danger.

In answer to the eager questions of Arthur--who of coursetook a deep scientific interest in the matter--he could give very few technicaldetails, though he had met the local doctor. It appeared, however, thatit was an almost new disease--at least in this century, though it mightprove to be identical with the `Plague' recorded in History--very infectious,and frightfully rapid in its action. `It will not, however, prevent ourparty tomorrow,' he said in conclusion. `None of the guests belong to theinfected district, which is, as you know, exclusively peopled by fishermen:so you may come without any fear.'

Arthur was very silent, all the way back, and, on reachingour lodgings, immediately plunged into medical studies, connected withthe alarming malady of whose arrival he had just heard.