I got up and walked to the window. Chu-Chu, John, the danger to my life—all of this was nothing. Edith thought that I had broken my word to her. Edith thought that I had stolen her pearls.
My friend, have you ever been tempted? Not tempted by gold, or a woman or the lust for revenge—but by something that is far deeper than life or death, or the hope of heaven? Have you ever been tempted until your very soul is wrung and tortured and screaming in pain? Mere death is a joke to this; the love of life is the longing of a child for a stick of candy in comparison. Edith to lose faith in me? The idea wrenched a groan from the very core of my whole conscious being. It was too much. Had I not done my part? Played the game honestly and fair?
But hot on the heels of this rank selfishness came the thought of Edith. It was of Edith that I must think. It was for Edith that I must suffer—and the knowledge that I might bear her burden of sorrow and shame took away all of the sting. Edith loved John. In John lay her whole life's happiness. Edith could not live in the knowledge that her husband had been tempted to theft and had succumbed. As for myself, her faith in me and in the goodness of mankind would suffer to the point of causing her infinite pain, but this pain would be an abstract quality. It would be a wound from which she would recover. But to feel that her loved husband had stolen, had committed the meanest of thefts rather than to come to her in his trouble, would be a stiletto through her pure heart.
I drew a deep breath, then turned and went back to John's bedside. He was lying face downward,
