ng you. As children we
had always been threatened with the just God! The most successful
preachers gained their power by painting pictures of the torments of
hell. That was the fashion then," smiling horribly.

"It is a wonderful thing that even the fashion in Gods changes. When we
were shut up together in the cabin on the hillside, she used to be
overwhelmed by paroxysms of fear. She read the Bible a great
deal--because sinners who wanted to repent always read it--and sometimes
she would come upon threats and curses, and cry out and turn white and
begin to shiver. Then she would beg me to pray and pray with her. And we
would kneel down on the bare floor and pray together. My prayers were
worse than useless. What could I say? I was a black sinner, too--a man
who was perjuring his soul with lies--and they were told and acted for
her sake, and she knew it. She used to cling about my neck and beg me to
betray her--to whiten my soul by confession--not to allow her wickedness
to destroy me--because she loved me--loved me. 'Go back to them and tell
them, Lucien,' she would cry, 'I will go with you if I ought--I have been
wicked--not you--I have been shameful; I must bear it--I must bear it.'
But she could not bear it. She died."

"Were you never able to give her any comfort?" said Baird. His eyes were
wet, and he spoke as in bitter appeal. "This had been a child in her
teens entrapped into bearing the curse of the world with all its results
of mental horror and physical agony."

"What comfort could I give?" was the answer. "My religion and my social
creed had taught me that she was a vile sinner--the worst and most
shameful of sinners--and that I was a criminal for striving to save her
from the consequences of her sin. I was defying the law of the just God,
who would have punished her with heart-break and open shame. He would not
have spared her, and He would not spare me since I so strove against Him.
The night she died--through the long hours of horrible, unnatural
convulsions of pain--when cold sweat stood in drops on her deathly
childish face, she would clutch my hands and cry out: 'Eternal torments!
For ever and ever and ever--could it be like this, Lucien--for ever and
ever and ever?' Then she would sob out, 'God! God! God!' in terrible,
helpless prayer. She had not strength for other words."

Baird sprang to his feet and thrust out his hand, averting his pallid
face.

"Don't tell me any more," he said. "I cannot--