le,
Colonel Gordon, in view of the order you are carrying out, to conceal
from you the dissensions of my family; they have gone so far that they
are now public property. Well, gentlemen, can I forgive my wife? I can,
of course, and do; but in what sense? I would certainly not stoop to any
revenge; as certainly I could not think of her but as one changed beyond
my recognition."

"Allow me," returned the Colonel. "You will permit me to hope that I am
addressing Christians? We are all conscious, I trust, that we are
miserable sinners."

"I disown the consciousness," said Gotthold. "Warmed with this good
fluid, I deny your thesis."

"How, sir? You never did anything wrong? and I heard you asking pardon
but this moment, not of your God, sir, but of a common fellow-worm!" the
Colonel cried.

"I own you have me; you are expert in argument, Herr Oberst," said the
Doctor.

"Begad, sir, I am proud to hear you say so," said the Colonel. "I was
well grounded indeed at Aberdeen. And as for this matter of forgiveness,
it comes, sir, of loose views and (what is if anything more dangerous) a
regular life. A sound creed and a bad morality, that's the root of
wisdom. You two gentlemen are too good to be forgiving."

"The paradox is somewhat forced," said Gotthold.

"Pardon me, Colonel," said the Prince; "I readily acquit you of any
design of offence, but your words bite like satire. Is this a time, do
you think, when I can wish to hear myself called good, now that I am
paying the penalty (and am willing like yourself to think it just) of my
prolonged misconduct?"

"O, pardon me!" cried the Colonel. "You have never been expelled from
the divinity hall; you have never been broke. I was: broke for a neglect
of military duty. To tell you the open truth, your Highness, I was the
worse of drink; it's a thing I never do now," he added, taking out his
glass. "But a man, you see, who has really tasted the defects of his own
character, as I have, and has come to regard himself as a kind of blind
teetotum knocking about life, begins to learn a very different view
about forgiveness. I will talk of not forgiving others, sir, when I have
made out to forgive myself, and not before; and the date is like to be a
long one. My father, the Reverend Alexander Gordon, was a good man, and
damned hard upon others. I am what they call a bad one, and that is just
the difference. The man who cannot forgive any mortal thing is a green
hand in life."

"