But till to-day you didn't
know that. I was wrong. I must have been wrong, hideously wrong, but I
didn't want you ever to know that. It isn't that I don't love truth.
You know I do. But I thought that he was right. And it is only lately,
this summer, that I have had any doubts. But I was wrong. I must have
been wrong. It was intended that you should know. God, perhaps,
intended it."
He thought he heard a movement. But he was not quite sure. For there
was always the noise of the sea in the deserted chambers of the
palace.
"It seems to me now as if I had always been deceived, mistaken, blind
with you, about you. I thought you need never know. I was mad enough
to think that. But I was madder still, for I thought--I must have
thought--that you could not bear to know, that you weren't strong
enough to endure the knowledge. But"--he was digging deep now,
searching for absolute truth: in this moment his natural passion for
truth, in one direction repressed for many years deliberately and
consciously, in other directions, perhaps almost unconsciously
frustrated, took entire possession of his being--"but nothing should
ever be allowed to stand in the way of truth.
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