Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/765

Rh don't let me have anything to do with it; don't let my name get mixed up in it, but it is a beautiful book I know.'

I sat down on the floor before the fire at dark, to consult my own heart, my own head. How I wanted a brother! My head told me that sin is the only rolling stone that gathers moss; that what a gentleman, a scholar, a man of the world may write when living, he would see very differently to what the poor soul would see standing naked before its God, with its good or evil deeds alone to answer for, and their consequences visible to it for the first moment, rolling on to the end of time. Oh for a friend on earth to stop and check them! What would he care for the applause of fifteen hundred men now for the whole world's praise, and God offended. My heart said, 'You can have six thousand guineas; your husband worked for you, kept you in a happy home, with honour and respect for thirty years. How are you going to reward him? That your wretched body may be fed and clothed and warmed for a few miserable months or years, will you let that soul, which is part of your soul, be left out in cold and darkness till the end of time, till all those sins which may have been committed on account of reading those writings have been expiated, or passed away perhaps for ever? Why, it would be just parallel with the original thirty pieces of silver!' I fetched the manuscript and laid it on the ground before me, two large volumes' worth. Still my thoughts were, Was it a sacrilege? It was his magnum opus; his last work that he was so proud