le Mohammedans and Christians and things
will be burned for their blasphemy of believing God not wise and good
enough to save them all, Mohammedan and Christian alike, though not
thinking excessively well of either; that only those laughing at the
whole gory nonsense will go into everlasting life by reason of their
superior faith in God."

"Of course that's plausible, and yet it's radical. Hoover's father was a
bishop, and I think Hoover is just a bit narrow from early training. He
can't see that lots of people who haven't a vestige of humour are
nevertheless worth saving. I admit that saving them will be a thankless
task. God won't be able to take very much pleasure in it, but in strict
justice he will do it--even if Hoover does regard it as a piece of
extravagant sentimentality."

A little later she went in. She left him gazing far off into the night,
filled with his message, dull to memory on the very scene that evoked in
her own heart so much from the old days. And as she went she laughed
inwardly at a certain consternation the woman of her could not wholly
put down; for she had blindly hurled herself against a wall--the wall of
his message. But it was funny, and the message chained her interest. She
could, she thought, strengthen his resolution to give it out--help him
in a thousand ways.

As she fell asleep the thought of him hovered and drifted on her heart
softly, as darkness rests on tired eyes.

CHAPTER XI

THE REMORSE OF WONDERING NANCY

She awoke to the sun, glad-hearted and made newly buoyant by one of
those soundless black sleeping-nights that come only to the town-tired
when they have first fled. She ran to the glass to know if the
restoration she felt might also be seen. With unbiassed calculation the
black-fringed lids drew apart and one hand pushed back of the temple,
and held there, a tangled skein of hair that had thrown the dusk of a
deep wood about her eyes. Then, as she looked, came the little dreaming
smile that unfitted critic eyes for their office; a smile that wakened
to a laugh as she looked--a little womanish chuckle of confident joy, as
one alone speaking aloud in an overflowing moment.

An hour later she was greeting Bernal where the sun washed through the
big room.

"Young life sings in me!" she said, and felt his lightening eyes upon
her lips as she smiled.

There were three days of it--days in which, however, she grew to fear
those eyes, lest they fall upon her in ju