Imagine that I had the power to tell
you, or rather that some superhuman agent could convince you, that you
had but a month to live, and that for what you did in that month you
would not be held responsible either by any moral law or any law made
by man, and that your life hereafter would not be influenced by your
conduct in that month, would you spend it, I ask you--and on your
answer depends mine--would you spend those thirty days, with death at
the end, with my daughter, or with some other woman of whom I know
nothing?"
Latimer sat for some time silent, until indeed, his silence assumed
such a significance that he raised his head impatiently and said with
a motion of the hand, "I mean to answer you in a minute; I want to be
sure that I understand."
The bishop bowed his head in assent, and for a still longer period the
men sat motionless. The clock in the corner seemed to tick more
loudly, and the dead coals dropping in the grate had a sharp,
aggressive sound. The notes of the piano that had risen from the room
below had ceased.
"If I understand you," said Latimer, finally, and his voice and his
face as he raised it were hard and aggressive, "you are stating a
purely hypothetical case. You wish to try me by conditions which do
not exist, which cannot exist. What justice is there, what right is
there, in asking me to say how I would act under circumstances which
are impossible, which lie beyond the limit of human experience? You
cannot judge a man by what he would do if he were suddenly robbed of
all his mental and moral training and of the habit of years.
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