ing of the
angel with the flaming sword to guard the gate shows that God still failed
to understand the wonderful creature he had made."

She smiled, meditative, wondering.

"I dare say, for my part, I'd have eaten that apple if the serpent had
been at all persuasive. Bernal, I wonder--and wonder--and wonder--I'm
never done. And Aunt Bell says I'll never be a sweet and wholesome and
stimulating companion to my husband, if I don't stop being so vague and
fantastic."

"What does she call being vague and fantastic?"

"Not wanting any husband."

"Oh!"

"Bernal, it's like the time that you ran off when you were a wee thing--to
be bad."

"And you cried because I wouldn't take you with me."

"I can feel the woe of it yet."

"You're dry-eyed now, Nance."

"Yes--and the pink parasol and the buff shoes I meant to take with me are
also things of the past. Mercy! The idea of going off with an unbeliever
to be bad and--everything! 'The happy couple are said to look forward to a
life of joyous wickedness, several interesting crimes having been planned
for the coming season. For their honeymoon infamy they will perpetrate a
series of bank-robberies along the Maine coast.' There--how would that
sound?"

"You're right, Nance--I wouldn't take you this time either, even if you
cried. And your little speech is funny and all that--but Nance, I believe,
these last years, we've both thought of things now and then--things, you
know--things to think of and not talk of--and see here--The man was driven
out of the garden--but not the woman. She isn't mentioned. She could stay
there--"

"Until she got tired of it herself?"

"Until the man came back for her."

He thought her face was glowing duskily in the twilight.

"I wonder--wonder about so many things," she said softly.

"I believe you're a sleeping rebel yourself, Nance. If ever you do eat
from that tree, there'll be no holding you. You won't wait to be driven
forth!"

"And you are, a wicked young man--that kind never comes back in the
stories."

"That may be no jest, Nance. I should surely be wicked, if I thought it
brings the happiness it's said to. Under this big sky I am free from any
moral law that doesn't come from right here inside me. Can you realize
that? Do I seem bad for saying it? What they call the laws of God are
nothing. I suspect them all, and I'll make every one of them find its
authority in me before I obey it."

"It sounds--well--unpromising, Berna