wasn't his love for her
that made her beautiful. She _was_ beautiful."

"And her soul?" softly questioned the shadowed lips of the Missioner.

The other's hand tightened slowly.

"In making her the angels forgot a soul, I guess," he said.

"Then your friend did not love her." The Little Missioner's voice was
quick and decisive. "There can be no love where there is no soul."

"That is impossible. He did love her. I know it."

"I still disagree with you. Without knowing your friend, I say that he
worshipped her beauty. There were others who worshipped that same
loveliness--others who did not possess her, and who would have bartered
their souls for her had they possessed souls to barter. Is that not
true?"

"Yes, there were others. But to understand you must have known my friend
before he sank down into the pit--when he was still a man. He was a
great student. His fortune was sufficient to give him both time and
means for the pursuits he loved. He had his great library, and adjoining
it a laboratory. He wrote books which few people read because they were
filled with facts and odd theories. He believed that the world was very
old, and that there was less profit for men in discovering new luxuries
for an artificial civilization than in re-discovering a few of the great
laws and miracles buried in the dust of the past. He believed that the
nearer we get to the beginning of things, and not the farther we drift,
the clearer comprehension can we have of earth and sky and God, and the
meaning of it all. He did not consider it an argument for progress that
Christ and His disciples knew nothing of the telephone, of giant engines
run by steam, of electricity, or of instruments by which man could send
messages for thousands of miles through space. His theory was that the
patriarchs of old held a closer touch on the pulse of Life than progress
in its present forms will ever bring to us. He was not a fanatic. He was
not a crank. He was young, and filled with enthusiasm. He loved
children. He wanted to fill his home with them. But his wife knew that
she was too beautiful for that--and they had none."

He had leaned a little forward, and had pulled his hat a trifle over his
eyes. There was a moment's lull in the storm, and it was so quiet that
each could hear the ticking of Father Roland's big silver watch.

Then he said:

"I don't know why I tell you all this, Father, unless it is to relieve
my own mind. There can be no hope