so harsh now--only now? You have spared the guilty before,
by tons, by hundreds. Why, now, cause all this misery for this one
young life?"

"Those whom I have spared were my personal foes; and I spared them not
so much for the sake of their separate lives, as for the sake of the
great principles for which I live and govern--reconciliation and peace.
For this end I pardoned them. For this end I condemn Moyse."

"You make one tremble," said Therese, shuddering, "for one's very self.
What if I were to tell you that it is not Moyse and Genifrede alone
that--" She stopped.

"That hate the whites? I know it," replied Toussaint. "I know that if
God were to smite all among us who hate His children of another race,
there would be mourning in some of the brightest dwellings of our land.
I thank God that no commission to smite such is given to me."

Therese was silent.

"My office is," said Toussaint, "to honour those (and they are to be
found in cottages all through the island) who forgive their former
oppressors, and forget their own wrongs. Here, as elsewhere, we may
take our highest lesson from the lowliest men. My office is to honour
such. As for the powerful, and those who think themselves wise--their
secret feelings towards all men are between themselves and God."

"But if I could prove to you, at this moment, that Moyse's enmity
towards the whites is mild and harmless--his passions moderation,
compared with the tempest in the breasts of some whom you employ and
cherish--would not this soften you--would it not hold your hand from
inflicting that which no priest can deny is injustice in God?"

"I leave it to no priest, Therese, but to God Himself, to vindicate His
own justice, by working as He will in the secret hearts, or before the
eyes of men. He may have, for those who hate their enemies, punishments
too great for me, or any ruler, to wield; punishments to which the
prison and the bullet are nothing. You speak of the tempest within the
breast: I know at this moment, if you do not, that years of
imprisonment, or a hundred death-strokes, are mercy compared to it. But
no more of this! I only say, Therese, that while Jacques--"

"Say me too!"

"While Jacques and you secretly hate, I have no concern with it, except
in my secret heart. But if that hatred, be it more or less than that of
this young man, should interfere with my duty to friend or foe, you see,
from his fate, that I have no mercy to grant.