he was not a good man. But your face, when you came, pleased me. I liked
to look at you. I was tormented just then, do you see, that so many
decent, kindly people, old school-mates and friends and neighbors of
mine--and, for that matter, others all over the country must lose their
souls because they were Protestants. At my boyhood and young manhood,
that thought took the joy out of me. Sometimes I usen't to sleep a whole
night long, for thinking that some lad I had been playing with, perhaps
in his own house, that very day, would be taken when he died, and his
mother too, when she died, and thrown into the flames of hell for
all eternity. It made me so unhappy that finally I wouldn't go to any
Protestant boy's house, and have his mother be nice to me, and give me
cake and apples--and me thinking all the while that they were bound to
be damned, no matter how good they were to me."

The primitive humanity of this touched Theron, and he nodded approbation
with a tender smile in his eyes, forgetting for the moment that a
personal application of the monologue had been hinted at.

"But then later, as I grew up," the sick man went on, "I learned that it
was not altogether certain. Some of the authorities, I found, maintained
that it was doubtful, and some said openly that there must be salvation
possible for good people who lived in ignorance of the truth through no
fault of their own. Then I had hope one day, and no hope the next, and
as I did my work I thought it over, and in the evenings my father and
I talked it over, and we settled nothing of it at all. Of course, how
could we?"

"Did you ever discuss the question with your sister?" it occurred
suddenly to Theron to interpose. He was conscious of some daring in
doing so, and he fancied that Michael's drawn face clouded a little at