" He was still smiling as he touched the scar on his
forehead. "And you, you were the other miracle. And I'm remembering. It
doesn't seem like seven or eight years, but only yesterday, that the
grain of sand got mixed up somewhere in the machinery in my head. And I
guess there was another reason for my going wrong. You'll understand,
when I tell you."
Had he been Conniston it could not have come from him more naturally,
more sincerely. He was living the great lie, and yet to him it was no
longer a lie. He did not hesitate, as shame and conscience might have
made him hesitate. He was fighting that something beautiful might be
raised up out of chaos and despair and be made to exist; he was
fighting for life in place of death, for happiness in place of grief,
for light in place of darkness--fighting to save where others would
destroy. Therefore the great lie was not a lie but a thing without
venom or hurt, an instrument for happiness and for all the things good
and beautiful that went to make happiness. It was his one great weapon.
Without it he would fail, and failure meant desolation. So he spoke
convincingly, for what he said came straight from the heart though it
was born in the shadow of that one master-falsehood.
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