 go home when I've taken this dose.«
    There was a slight pause before Adam said -
    »My temper got the better of me, and I said things as wasn't true. I'd no
right to speak as if you'd known you was doing me an injury: you'd no grounds
for knowing it; I've always kept what I felt for her as secret as I could.«
    He paused again before he went on.
    »And perhaps I judged you too harsh - I'm apt to be harsh; and you may have
acted out o' thoughtlessness more than I should ha' believed was possible for a
man with a heart and a conscience. We're not all put together alike, and we may
misjudge one another. God knows, it's all the joy I could have now, to think the
best of you.«
    Arthur wanted to go home without saying any more - he was too painfully
embarrassed in mind, as well as too weak in body, to wish for any further
explanation to-night. And yet it was a relief to him that Adam reopened the
subject in a way the least difficult for him to answer. Arthur was in the
wretched position of an open, generous man, who has committed an error which
makes deception seem a necessity. The native impulse to give truth in return for
truth, to meet trust with frank confession, must be suppressed, and duty was
become a question of tactics. His deed was reacting upon him - was already
governing him tyrannously, and forcing him into a course that jarred with his
habitual feelings. The only aim that seemed admissible to him now was to deceive
Adam to the utmost: to make Adam think better of him than he deserved. And when
he heard the words of honest retractation - when he heard the sad appeal with
which Adam ended - he was obliged to rejoice in the remains of ignorant
confidence it implied. He did not answer immediately, for he had to be
judicious, and not truthful.
    »Say no more about our anger, Adam,« he said, at last, very languidly, for
the labour of speech was unwelcome to him; »I forgive your momentary injustice -
it was quite natural, with the exaggerated notions you had in your mind. We
shall be none the worse friends in future, I hope, because we've fought: you had
the best of it, and that was as it should be, for I believe I've been most in
the wrong of the two. Come
