There seems a great
deal more of the Devil than of God."

At that moment the shopkeeper's attention was drawn away from him by
the coming of another customer, leaving him and the town missionary
together.

"Nay, but you mustn't say that, Paul lad," said the missionary.
"Happen in a few months you will get over all these things."

"I shall never get over it," said Paul. "For six months I have been
wearing prison clothes; I have been sleeping in a cold, dark cell; my
name has been taken away from me, and I have simply been known by a
number, and I have been looked upon not as a man, but as a beast.
There's not much to make one think of God in all that, Mr. Whitman!"

"Ay, it's been hard on thee," replied the old man, "and there's many a
one in Brunford who thinks something should have been done for thee. I
suppose Ned Wilson felt very bitter towards you, and when he was
instructing the counsel, he made him believe that you were the
ringleader. There's more than one who have said that Bolitho was very
unfair. However, the Lord will make everything right."

"I shall never believe that the Lord has made everything right until
Bolitho and Wilson have suffered as I have suffered," replied Paul
bitterly. "If I could see Bolitho in prison clothes; if he were known
by a number; if he had to tramp the prison yard among the scum of the
earth, as I have; if he had to lie in a cold cell with the darkness of
hell in his heart, as I have, then I could believe in Providence
perhaps. But when I remember that I was regarded as a beast and not as
a man, while he was drinking wine and faring sumptuously, there did not
seem much justice in the world."

Hearing a rustle by his side as he spoke, Paul turned and saw that the
customer who had been talking with the shopkeeper was looking straight
at him, and his heart beat violently as the eyes of the two met. It
was a young girl he saw, not more than twenty years of age, and, as far
as he knew, she was a stranger to the town. He had never seen her
before, and she appeared different from the young women with whom he
had happened to meet. He noticed, too, as their eyes met, that hers
were full of horror. She seemed to regard him as she might regard a
snarling dog. He saw her lips quiver, and he thought for a moment that
she was about to speak to him. The intensity of her gaze made him
almost beside himself, and then, acting on the impulse of the moment,
and speaking with the f