But I did not tell all the story to this company, for some of it was for
Lily's ear alone, and to her I spoke of my dealings with Otomie as a
man might speak with a man, for I felt that if I kept anything back now
there would never be complete faith between us. Therefore I set out
all my doubts and troublings, nor did I hide that I had learned to love
Otomie, and that her beauty and sweetness had drawn me from the first
moment when I saw her in the court of Montezuma, or that which had
passed between us on the stone of sacrifice.
When I had done Lily thanked me for my honesty and said it seemed that
in such matters men differed from women, seeing that SHE had never felt
the need to be delivered from the temptation of strange loves. Still we
were as God and Nature had made us, and therefore had little right to
reproach each other, or even to set that down as virtue which was
but lack of leaning. Moreover, this Otomie, her sin of heathenism
notwithstanding, had been a great-hearted woman and one who might well
dazzle the wandering eyes of man, daring more for her love's sake than
ever she, Lily, could have dared; and to end with, it was clear that at
last I must choose between wedding her and a speedy death, and having
sworn so great an oath to her I should have been perjured indeed if
I had left her when my dangers were gone by.
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