Page:The great Galeoto; Folly or saintliness; two plays done from the verse of José Echegaray into English prose by Hannah Lynch (IA greatgaleotofoll00echerich).djvu/187

 compelled to pronounce a word that burns on my lips. I rob a name and all its rights, and I deprive my victims of their best means of defence against a cupidity that may any day develop in my descendants, and perhaps give rise to a worse iniquity in the future. Don't you see it? Surely you must see it if you are not totally blind! I must tell the truth, the whole truth, in a loud voice, happen what will.

. Lorenzo!

. Would a judge and a tribunal sentence me to despoilment of my goods alone, or to despoilment of both my goods and my name? Of everything, everything—is it not so? Then what a judge would decide I have to do myself—my own judge—or I am a wretched fellow. Such, my poor wife, is what my conscience ordains me to do. I want no half-hearted view of honesty, for there is no middle term between clean honour and complete abasement. All this is quite clear to me. Nothing so clear as duty.

. Very well, if the affair is made public the duchess will not give her consent.

. She will not consent. 'Tis what I have already said.

. Ah, Lorenzo, Lorenzo, you are everything,—philosopher, moralist, jurisconsult, and, needless to say, gentleman. All, all, wretched reflecting machine, except a father.

. If you want to drive me out of my senses you are succeeding.

. That would indeed be difficult.

. Because I am out of them already?

. Yes, but you haven't yet got to the bottom of the abyss. Hear me, Lorenzo, for I, too, understand something of logic—after all, am I not your 147