sleep. When the missionary came upstairs from Miss Thompson he prayed
till he was exhausted, but even then he did not sleep for long. After an
hour or two he got up and dressed himself, and went for a tramp along
the bay. He had strange dreams.

"This morning he told me that he'd been dreaming about the mountains of
Nebraska," said Mrs Davidson.

"That's curious," said Dr Macphail.

He remembered seeing them from the windows of the train when he crossed
America. They were like huge mole-hills, rounded and smooth, and they
rose from the plain abruptly. Dr Macphail remembered how it struck him
that they were like a woman's breasts.

Davidson's restlessness was intolerable even to himself. But he was
buoyed up by a wonderful exhilaration. He was tearing out by the roots
the last vestiges of sin that lurked in the hidden corners of that poor
woman's heart. He read with her and prayed with her.

"It's wonderful," he said to them one day at supper. "It's a true
rebirth. Her soul, which was black as night, is now pure and white like
the new-fallen snow. I am humble and afraid. Her remorse for all her
sins is beautiful. I am not worthy to touch the hem of her garment."

"Have you the heart to send her back to San Francisco?" said the doctor.
"Three years in an American prison. I should have thought you might have
saved her from that."

"Ah, but don't you see? It's necessary. Do you think my heart doesn't
bleed for her? I love her as I love my wife and my sister. All the time
that she is in prison I shall suffer all the pain that she suffers."

"Bunkum," cried the doctor impatiently.

"You don't understand because you're blind. She's sinned, and she must
suffer. I know what she'll endure. She'll be starved and tortured and
humiliated. I want her to accept the punishment of man as a sacrifice to
God. I want her to accept it joyfully. She has an opportunity which is
offered to very few of us. God is very good and very merciful."

Davidson's voice trembled with excitement. He could hardly articulate
the words that tumbled passionately from his lips.

"All day I pray with her and when I leave her I pray again, I pray with
all my might and main, so that Jesus may grant her this great mercy. I
want to put in her heart the passionate desire to be punished so that at
the end, even if I offered to let her go, she would refuse. I want her
to feel that the bitter punishment of prison is the thank-offering that
she places at th