And, as the issue proved, I was right.
After he had told his tale Umslopogaas went off unconcernedly to get his morning meal, and Sir Henry and I fell to talking.
At first he was very bitter against Good, who, he said, was no longer to be trusted, having designedly allowed Sorais to escape by some secret stair when it was his duty to have handed her over to justice.

Indeed, he spoke in the most unmeasured terms on the matter.

I let him run on awhile, reflecting to myself how easy we find it to be hard on the weaknesses of others, and how tender we are to our own.
'Really, my dear fellow,' I said at length, 'one would never think, to hear you talk, that you were the man who had an interview with this same lady yesterday, and found it rather difficult to resist her fascinations, notwithstanding your ties to one of the loveliest and most loving women in the world.

Now suppose it was Nyleptha who had tried to murder Sorais, and _you_ had caught her, and she had pleaded with you, would you have been so very eager to hand her over to an open shame, and to death by fire?
Just look at the matter through Good's eyeglass for a minute before you denounce an old friend as a scoundrel.' He listened to this jobation submissively, and then frankly acknowledged that he had spoken hardly.

It is one of the best points in Sir Henry's character that he is always ready to admit it when he is in the wrong.
But, though I spoke up thus for Good, I was not blind to the fact that, however natural his behaviour might be, it was obvious that he was being involved in a very awkward and disgraceful complication.