nd fail to
do it, it matters a great deal. We can't afford to be unjust, for our
own sake. The bearer of the torch should not burn, he should illumine."

"I don't understand that," she said, genuinely searching for his
meaning.

"There is where you disappoint me," he retorted. "Most women quiver with
altruistic passion the moment they see helpless misery. If you saw a
kitten fall into a well what would you do?"

"I should certainly try to save it."

"Your heart would bleed to see it drown?"

She shivered at the thought. "Why, of course!"

"And yet you can share in your father's exterminating vengeance as he
sweeps ten thousand redmen into their graves?"

"The case is different--the kitten never did any harm."

"The wrong is by no means all on the redman's side. But even if it were,
Christ said, 'Love them that hate you,' and as a Christian nation we
should not go out in vindictive warfare against even those who
despitefully use us. I haven't a very high seat in the synagogue. I have
a soldier's training for warfare, but I acknowledge the splendor of
Christ's precepts and try to live up to them. I always liked Grant's
position as regards the soldier. But more than that--I like these red
people. They are a good deal more than rude men. It is a great pleasure
to feel their trust and confidence in me. It touches me deeply to have
them come and put their palms on me reverently, as though I were
superhuman in wisdom, and say: 'Little Father, we are blind. We cannot
see the way. Lead us and we will go.' At such times I feel that no other
work in the world is so important. If human souls are valuable anywhere
on earth they are valuable here; no selfish land-lust should blind us to
see that."

As he spoke, the girl again felt something large and sweet and powerful,
like a current of electrical air which came out of wide spaces of human
emotion and covered her like a flood. She was humbled by the high
purpose and inexplicable enthusiasm of the man before her.

"I suppose you consider me cruel and heartless!" she cried out. "But I
am not to blame for being what I am."

"If you are not free, who is? You have it all--youth, wealth, beauty.
Nothing enslaves you but indifference."

She was thinking that Lawson had never moved her so, and wishing Curtis
were less inexorable in his logic, when he checked himself by saying: "I
beg your pardon again. I came to see your pictures, not to preach
forgiveness of sins. I here pul