And then Grace,--she must not be left to find out what he knew about Lillie.

He had told Grace that she was only twenty,--told it on her authority; and now must he become an accomplice?
If called on to speak of his wife's age, must he accommodate the truth to her story, or must he palter and evade?
Here was another brick laid on the wall of separation between his sister and himself.

It was rising daily.

Here was another subject on which he could never speak frankly with Grace; for he must defend Lillie,--every impulse of his heart rushed to protect her.
But it is a terrible truth, and one that it will not hurt any of us to bear in mind, that our judgments of our friends are involuntary.
We may long with all our hearts to confide; we may be fascinated, entangled, and wish to be blinded; but blind we cannot be.

The friend that has lied to us once, we may long to believe; but we cannot.