e could speak, turning her shoulders
resolutely towards him.

He took up his hat, and went out softly, closing the door softly
behind him.

His eye, which was growing quick to read Naomi's face, saw at once,
as he entered the room a week later, that she deprecated even the
slightest reference to her weakness. It also told him--he had not
guessed it before--that her emotional breakdown had probably more to
do with physical exhaustion than with any eloquence of his. The pile
of washing had grown, and the woman's face was grey with fatigue.

Geake, as he made out the voucher, cast about for a polite mode of
hinting that this kind of thing must not go on. Nevertheless it was
Naomi who began.

"Look here," she said, as he put down the voucher; "there ain't goin'
to be no more prayin', eh?"

"Why, to be sure there is," he answered with a show of great
cheerfulness; and reached for a chair.

"I'd liefer you didn't. I don't want it. I don't hold by any o't.
You'm very kind," she went on, her voice trembling for an instant and
then recovering its firmness, "and I reckon it soothed mother. But I
reckon it don't soothe me. I reckon it rubs me the wrong way. There's
times, when I hears a body prayin', that I wishes we was Papists again
and worshipped images, that I might throw stones at 'em!"

She paused, looked up into Geake's devouring eyes, and added, with a
poor attempt at a laugh:

"So you see, I'm wicked, an' don't want to be saved."

Then the man broke forth:

"Saved? No, I reckon you don't! Wicked? Iss, I reckon you be! But
saved you shall be--ay, if you was twice so wicked. Who'll do it? I'll
do it--I alone. I don't want your help. I want to do it in spite of
'ee: an' I'll lay that I do! Be your wickedness deep as hell, an' I'll
reach down a hand to the roots and pluck it up: be your salvation
stubborn as Death, I'll wrestle wi' the Lord for it. If I sell my own
soul for't, yours shall be redeemed!"

He slammed down his fist on the rickety deal table, which promptly
collapsed flat on the floor, with its four legs splayed under the
circular cover.

"Bein' a carpenter--" Geake began to stammer apologetically, and in a
totally different tone.

For a second--two seconds--the issue hung between tears and laughter.
An hysterical merriment twinkled in Naomi's eyes.

But the strength of Geake's passion saved the situation. He stepped up
to Naomi, laid a hand on each shoulder, and shook her gently to and
fro.