emn duty to Nora, to
womankind, and to the world, to seek out the wretch as wronged her and
kill him where I find him, just as I would a rattlesnake as had bit my
child."

"They would hang you for it, Reuben!" shuddered Hannah.

"Then they'd do very wrong! But they'd not hang me, Hannah! Thank
Heaven, in these here parts we all vally our women's innocence a deal
higher than we do our lives, or even our honor. And if a man is right to
kill another in defense of his own life, he is doubly right to do so in
defense of woman's honor. And judges and juries know it, too, and feel
it, as has been often proved. But anyways, whether or no," said Reuben
Gray, with the dogged persistence for which men of his class are often
noted, "I want to find that man to give him his dues."

"And be hung for it," said Hannah curtly.

"No, my dear, I don't want to be hung for the fellow. Indeed, to tell
the truth, I shouldn't like it at all; I know I shouldn't beforehand;
but at the same time I mustn't shrink from doing of my duty first, and
suffering for it afterwards, if necessary! So now for the rascal's name,
Hannah!"

"Reuben Gray, I couldn't tell you if I would, and I wouldn't tell you if
I could! What! do you think that I, a Christian woman, am going to send
you in your blind, brutal vengeance to commit the greatest crime you
possibly could commit?"

"Crime, Hannah! why, it is a holy duty!"

"Duty, Reuben! Do you live in the middle of the nineteenth century, in a
Christian land, and have you been going to church all your life, and
hearing the gospel of peace preached to this end?"

"Yes! For the Lord himself is a God of vengeance. He destroyed Sodom and
Gomorrah by fire, and once He destroyed the whole world by water!"

"'The devil can quote Scripture for his purpose,' Reuben! and I think he
is prompting you now! What! do you, a mortal, take upon yourself the
divine right of punishing sin by death? Reuben, when from the dust of
the earth you can make a man, and breathe into his nostrils the breath
of life, then perhaps you may talk of punishing sin with death. You
cannot even make the smallest gnat or worm live! How then could you dare
to stop the sacred breath of life in a man!" said Hannah.

"I don't consider the life of a wretch who has destroyed an innocent
girl sacred by any means," persisted Reuben.

"The more sinful the man, the more sacred his life!"

"Well, I'm blowed to thunder, Hannah, if that aint the rummest th