at down, he rose again, unable to endure the intolerable thought. He
flung out his arms; his eyes, cast upwards, called God to witness that
it was too much! It was too much!

Some way of escape there must be. Heaven could not look down on, could
not suffer such deeds in a Christian land. But men and women, girls and
young children had suffered these things; had appealed and called Heaven
to witness, and gone to death, and Heaven had not moved, nor the angels
descended! But it could not be in her case. Some way of escape there
must be. There must be.

Why should she not leave her mother to her fate? A fate that could not
be evaded? Why need she, whose capacity for suffering was so great, who
had so much of life and love and all good things before her, remain to
share the pains of one whose span in any case was nearing its end? Of
one who had no longer power--or so it seemed--to meet the smallest
shock, and must succumb before she knew more of suffering than the name.
One whom a rude word might almost extinguish, and a rough push thrust
out of life? Why remain, when to remain was to sacrifice two lives in
lieu of one, to give and get nothing, to die for a prejudice? Why
remain, when by remaining she could not save her mother, but, on the
contrary, must inflict the sharpest pang of all, since she destroyed the
being who was dearest to her mother, the being whom her mother would die
to save?

He grew heated as he dwelt on it. Of what use to any, the feeble
flickering light upstairs, that must go out were it left for a moment
untended? The light that would have gone out this long time back had she
not fostered it and cherished it and sheltered it in her bosom? Of what
avail that weak existence? Or, if it were of avail, why, for its sake,
waste this other and more precious life that still could not redeem it?

Why?

He must speak to her. He must persuade her, press her, convince her;
carry her off by force were it necessary. It was his duty, his clear
call. He rose and walked the room in excitement, as he thought of it. He
had pity for the old, abandoned and left to suffer alone; and an
enlightening glimpse of the weight that the girl must carry through life
by reason of this desertion. But no doubt, no hesitation--he told
himself--no scruple. To die that her mother might live was one thing.
To die--and so to die--merely that her mother's last hours might be
sheltered and comforted, was another, and a thing unreasonable.