"

"I can't escape from it," Esther cried. "You don't understand, Will,
what it means. You never have understood."

"Dearest Essie, I understand only too well. I've paid pretty handsomely
in having to listen to reproaches, in having to dry your tears and stop
your sighs with kisses. Your damned religion is a joke. Can't you grasp
that? It's not my fault we can't get married. If I were really the
scoundrel you torment yourself into thinking I am, I would have married
and taken the risk of my strumpet of a wife turning up. But I've treated
you honestly, Essie. I can't help loving you. I went away once. I went
away again. And a third time I went just to relieve your soul of the sin
of loving me. But I'm sick of suffering for the sake of a myth, a
superstition."

Esther had moved close to him, and now she put a hand upon his arm.

"To you, Will. Not to me."

"Look here, Essie," said her lover. "If you knew that you were liable to
these dreadful attacks of remorse and penitence, why did you ever
encourage me?"

"How dare you say I encouraged you?"

"Now don't let your religion make you dishonest," he stabbed. "No man
seduces a woman of your character without as much goodwill as deserves
to be called encouragement, and by God _is_ encouragement," he went on
furiously. "Let's cut away some of the cant before we begin arguing
again about religion."

"You don't know what a hell you're making for me when you talk like
that," she gasped. "If I did encourage you, then my sin is a thousand
times blacker."

"Oh, don't exaggerate, my dear girl," he said wearily. "It isn't a sin
for two people to love each other."

"I've tried my best to think as you do, but I can't. I've avoided going
to church. I've tried to hate religion, I've mocked at God . . ." she
broke off in despair of explaining the force of grace, against the gift
of which she had contended in vain.

"I always thought you were brave, Essie. But you're a real coward. The
reason for all this is your fear of being pitchforked into a big bonfire
by a pantomime demon with horns and a long tail." He laughed bitterly.
"To think that you, my adored Essie, should really have the soul of a
Sunday school teacher. You, a Bacchante of passion, to be puling about
your sins. You! You! Girl, you're mad! I tell you there is no such thing
as damnation. It's a bogey invented by priests to enchain mankind. But
if there is and if that muddle-headed old gentleman you call God really