I won't cant about virtue.
But I do claim that in my public life I have tried to do right. Will
you do me the justice to think so?"
Madeleine still struggled to prevent herself from being drawn into
indefinite promises of sympathy with this man. She would keep
him at arm's length whatever her sympathies might be. She would
not pledge herself to espouse his cause. She turned upon him with
an effort, and said that her thoughts, now or at any time, were folly
and nonsense, and that the consciousness of right-doing was the
only reward any public man had a right to expect.
"And yet you are a hard critic, Mrs. Lee. If your thoughts are what
you say, your words are not. You judge with the judgment of
abstract principles, and you wield the bolts of divine justice. You
look on and condemn, but you refuse to acquit. When I come to
you on the verge of what is likely to be the fatal plunge of my life,
and ask you only for some clue to the moral principle that ought to
guide me, you look on and say that virtue is its own reward. And
you do not even say where virtue lies."
"I confess my sins," said Madeleine, meekly and despondently;
"life is more complicated than I thought."
"I shall be guided by your advice," said Ratcliffe; "I shall walk into
that den of wild beasts, since you think I ought. But I shall hold
you to your responsibility. You cannot refuse to see me through
dangers you have helped to bring me into."
"No, no!" cried Madeleine, earnestly; "no responsibility.
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