Page:Whyte-Melville--Bones and I.djvu/175

 nay, one in a thousand, on whom an honest heart is not thrown away, it is worth while to try and find her. At worst, better be deceived over and over again than sink into that deepest slough of depravity in which those struggle who, because their own trust has been outraged, declare there is no faith to be kept with others; because their own day has been darkened, deny the existence of light."

"You speak feelingly," I observe, conscious that such unusual earnestness denotes a conviction he will get the worst of the debate. "You have perhaps been more fortunate than the rest. Have you found her, then, this hundredth woman, this prize, this pearl, this black swan, glorious as the phoenix and rare as the dodo ? Forgive my argumentum ad hominem, if I may use the expression, and forgive my urging that such good fortune only furnishes one of those