As we are not writing a three-volume novel, we have a right, perhaps,
not to linger over this part of our story. For any one who likes to
indulge a somewhat morbid taste, or who happens to be keen about
physiology, there is daily food sufficient in those ingenious romances
_d'Outre-mer_.
It is hardly worth while speculating how far Cecil deluded herself when
she thought that she was safe in trusting to her own strength of
principle and to the generosity of Royston Keene. All this seems to me
not to affect the main question materially. Does it help us--after we
have yielded to temptation--that our resolves, when it first assailed
us, should have been prudent and sincere, if such a plea can not avert
the consequences or extenuate the guilt? The grim old proverb tells us
how a certain curiously tesselated pavement is laid down. Millions of
feet have trodden those stones for sixty ages, yet they may well last
till the Day of Judgment, they are so constantly and unsparingly
renewed.
It is more than rashness for any mortal to say to the strong,
treacherous ocean, "Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther;" it is
trenching on the privilege of Omnipotence.
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