the
liar for selling your father out of a place he was never in! He is safe,
believe me, if he was the good man you say. Do not disturb yourself,
Jacqueline."

"He never harmed a soul. And we loved him that way a bad man could not
be loved."

As Jacqueline said this, a smile more sad than joyful passed over her
face, and disappeared.

"He rests in peace," said Victor Le Roy.

"It is what I must believe. But what if there should be a mistake about
it? It was all I was working for."

"Think for yourself, Jacqueline. No matter what Leclerc thinks or I
think. Can you suppose that Jesus Christ requires any such thing as this
of you, that you should make a slave of yourself for the expiation of
your father? It is a monstrous thought. Doubt not it was love that
took him away so quickly. And love can care for him. Long before this,
doubtless, he has heard the words, 'Come, ye blessed of my father!' And
what is required of you, do you ask? You shall be merciful to them that
live; and trust Him that He will care for those who have gone beyond
your reach. Is it so? Do I understand you? You have been thinking to
_buy_ this good _gift_ of God, eternal life for your father, when of
course you could have nothing to do with it. You have been imposed upon,
and robbed all this while, and this is the amount of it."

"Well, do not speak so. If what you say is true,--and I think it may
be,--what is past is past."

"But won't you see what an infernal lie has been practised on you, and
all the rest of us who had any conscience or heart in us, all this
while? There _is_ no purgatory; and it is nonsense to think, that, if
there were, money could buy a man out of it. Jesus Christ is the one
sole atonement for sin. And by faith in Him shall a man save his soul
alive. That is the only way. If I lose my soul, and am gone, the rest
is between me and God. Do you see it _should_ be so, and must be so,
Jacqueline?"

"He was a good man," said Jacqueline.

She did not find it quite easy to make nothing of all this matter, which
had been the main-spring of her effort since her father died. She could
not in one instant drop from her calculations that on which she had
heretofore based all her activity. She had labored so long, so hard, to
buy the rest and peace and heavenly blessedness of the father she loved,
it was hardly to be expected that at once she would choose to see that
in that rest and peace and blessedness, she, as a producing power,