le instrument
in the hands of Providence, helping her towards possible salvation, she
ought to have been grateful. And instead of that she had flung into the
agonized face of Mrs. Munday these awful words:

"I wish he was dead!"

"He who in his heart--" there was verse and chapter for it. Joan was a
murderess. Just as well, so far as Joan was concerned, might she have
taken a carving-knife and stabbed Deacon Hornflower to the heart.

Joan's prayers that night, to the accompaniment of Mrs. Munday's sobs,
had a hopeless air of unreality about them. Mrs. Munday's kiss was cold.

How long Joan lay and tossed upon her little bed she could not tell.
Somewhere about the middle of the night, or so it seemed to her, the
frenzy seized her. Flinging the bedclothes away she rose to her feet. It
is difficult to stand upon a spring mattress, but Joan kept her balance.
Of course He was there in the room with her. God was everywhere, spying
upon her. She could distinctly hear His measured breathing. Face to
face with Him, she told Him what she thought of Him. She told Him He was
a cruel, wicked God.

There are no Victoria Crosses for sinners, or surely little Joan that
night would have earned it. It was not lack of imagination that helped
her courage. God and she alone, in the darkness. He with all the forces
of the Universe behind Him. He armed with His eternal pains and
penalties, and eight-year-old Joan: the creature that He had made in His
Own Image that He could torture and destroy. Hell yawned beneath her,
but it had to be said. Somebody ought to tell Him.

"You are a wicked God," Joan told Him. "Yes, You are. A cruel, wicked
God."

And then that she might not see the walls of the room open before her,
hear the wild laughter of the thousand devils that were coming to bear
her off, she threw herself down, her face hidden in the pillow, and
clenched her hands and waited.

And suddenly there burst a song. It was like nothing Joan had ever heard
before. So clear and loud and near that all the night seemed filled with
harmony. It sank into a tender yearning cry throbbing with passionate
desire, and then it rose again in thrilling ecstasy: a song of hope, of
victory.

Joan, trembling, stole from her bed and drew aside the blind. There was
nothing to be seen but the stars and the dim shape of the hills. But
still that song, filling the air with its wild, triumphant melody.

Years afterwards, listening