h is all purity and rectitude, what
a mixture of good there may be in things evil; and how the greatest
criminal, if you look at his conduct from his own point of view, or from
any side point, may seem not so unquestionably guilty, after all. So
with Miriam; so with Donatello. They are, perhaps, partners in what we
must call awful guilt; and yet, I will own to you,--when I think of the
original cause, the motives, the feelings, the sudden concurrence of
circumstances thrusting them onward, the urgency of the moment, and
the sublime unselfishness on either part,--I know not well how to
distinguish it from much that the world calls heroism. Might we not
render some such verdict as this?--'Worthy of Death, but not unworthy of
Love! '"

"Never!" answered Hilda, looking at the matter through the clear crystal
medium of her own integrity. "This thing, as regards its causes, is all
a mystery to me, and must remain so. But there is, I believe, only one
right and one wrong; and I do not understand, and may God keep me from
ever understanding, how two things so totally unlike can be mistaken for
one another; nor how two mortal foes, as Right and Wrong surely are, can
work together in the same deed. This is my faith; and I should be led
astray, if you could persuade me to give it up."

"Alas for poor human nature, then!" said Kenyon sadly, and yet half
smiling at Hilda's unworldly and impracticable theory. "I always felt
you, my dear friend, a terribly severe judge, and have been perplexed to
conceive how such tender sympathy could coexist with the remorselessness
of a steel blade. You need no mercy, and therefore know not how to show
any."

"That sounds like a bitter gibe," said Hilda, with the tears springing
into her eyes. "But I cannot help it. It does not alter my perception of
the truth. If there be any such dreadful mixture of good and evil as
you affirm,--and which appears to me almost more shocking than
pure evil,--then the good is turned to poison, not the evil to
wholesomeness."

The sculptor seemed disposed to say something more, but yielded to the
gentle steadfastness with which Hilda declined to listen. She grew very
sad; for a reference to this one dismal topic had set, as it were, a
prison door ajar, and allowed a throng of torturing recollections to
escape from their dungeons into the pure air and white radiance of
her soul. She bade Kenyon a briefer farewell than ordinary, and went
homeward to her tower.