There was this about Governor Blankenship: he had been named for the father of his country--that man who could not tell a lie. And, wittingly, Governor Blankenship had never in all his blameless life told a lie either. To keep the faith with himself and the world, to wear truth like a badge shining upon his breast, had from boyhood been his dearest ideal. Off that course he never intentionally had departed. With him it was more than a code of ethics and more than a creed of personal conduct--it was the holiest of religions. He unreservedly believed that one guilty falsehood--just one--would consign his soul to the bottommost pit of perdition forever. Here was a real Sir Galahad, a perfect knight of perfect honor.
Through days and weeks he walked between two invisible but ever-present mentors. One of them, whose name was Expediency, constantly tempted him.
"You passed your word under duress and in mortal fear," Expediency whispered in his ear. "Let that man rot in his cell. 'Tis his just desert."
But the other counselor, called Conscience, as repeatedly said to him: "You never told a lie. Can you tell one now?"
In such grievous plight, he received a secret message, sent by underground from Wyeth.
"I'm getting impatient," was Wyeth's word. "Are you, or are you not, going to come clean?"
This enhanced his desperation. From sleeplessness, from gnawing worry he lost flesh. People about him said the noble young governor was not like himself any more. They predicted a breakdown unless he was cured of what hidden cause it was which distressed him.
One morning he rose, haggard and red-eyed, from the bed upon which since midnight he had tossed and rolled. He had made his decision. Selfishness had won. He would break his promise to Wyeth. But since he must go to eternal Hell for a lie, he would go there for another and a sweeter reason.
Until now, his romantic dealings with little Mrs. Riddle had been mild and harmless, if clandestinely conducted. He had not philandered with her; he merely had flirted. On his side it had been an innocent flirtation--an agreeable diversion. But he knew the lady's mind--knew she was weak and willing, where he had been strong and straightforward.
So be it then. For a crown to his other and lesser iniquity he would corrupt the wife of his devoted friend.