, "you are asking me to peril my
son's soul for it."

They had reached the Hoe by this time. John Rosewarne dropped upon a
bench and sat resting both hands on his staff and gazing over the
twinkling waters of the Sound.

"Anne married a gentleman," pursued Sam.

"Ay, and a rake. A-ah!" muttered the old man after a moment, drawing a
long breath, "if only that boy of hers weren't blind! But he doesn't
carry the name, while _you_."--He broke off with a savage laugh.
"What's that you said a moment ago?--something about immortal souls."

"I said there's a world beyond this, and,"--

"Is there? That's what I'm concerned to know just now. And_ you?_
What are you proposing to do when you get there?" He withdrew his eyes
from the bright seascape and let them travel slowly over his son. "_You!_
sitting there like a blot on God's sunshine! By what right should you
expect another world, who have cut such a figure in this one? I have
known love and lust, and drink and hard work and hard fighting; I have
been down in the depths, and again I have known moments to make a man
smack his hands together for joy to be alive and doing. But you?
What kind of man are you, you son of mine? What do you live for? Why did
you marry? And what did you and your poor woman find to talk about?"

Whatever bullying Sam suffered, he had his revenge in this--that he and no
other man could exasperate his father to weakness. He rubbed his thin
side whiskers now and muttered something about 'an acceptable sacrifice.'

The old man jabbed viciously at the gravel with his staff. "And your
religion?" he broke forth again. "What is it? In some secret way it
satisfies you--but how? I look into the Bible, and I find that the whole
of religion rests on a man's giving himself away to help others.
I don't believe in it myself; I believe in the exact contrary.
Still there the thing is, set out in black and white. It upsets law and
soldiering and nine-tenths of men's doings in trade: to me it's folly; but
so it stands, honest as daylight. When did _you_ help a man down on his
luck? or forgive your debtor? You'll get my money because you never did
aught of the kind. Yet somehow you're a Christian, and prate of your mean
life as an acceptable sacrifice. In my belief you're a Christian
precisely because Christianity--how you work it out I don't know--will
give you a sanction for any dirty trick that comes in your way. When good
feeling, or eve