Malling looked at his companion without speaking. At this moment he
was so strongly interested that he simply forgot to speak. Never, even
at a successful sitting when, the possibility of trickery having been
eliminated, a hitherto hidden truth seemed about to lift a torch in the
darkness and to illumine an unknown world, had he been more absorbed by
the matter in hand. Chichester did not seem to be struck by his silence,
and continued:

"And then not every one is fitted to comprehend properly certain matters,
to see things in their true light. Now the other day you said a thing
that greatly impressed me, that I have never been able to get out of my
mind since. You said, 'Harm can never come from truth.' I have been
thinking about those words of yours, night and day, night and day. Tell
me--did you mean them?"

The question came from Chichester's lips with such force that Malling was
almost startled.

"Certainly I meant them," he answered.

"And if truth slays?"

"And is death the worst thing that can happen to a man, or to an
idea--some wretched fallacy, perhaps, that has governed the minds of
men, some gross superstition, some lie that darkens counsel?"

"You think if a man lives by a lie he is better dead?"

"Don't you think so?"