knew it not. The brighter burned his own shining light, the blacker the
shadows it threw upon the future of all sinners.

As Tregenza finished and put down his Bible, the other spoke and quoted
eagerly:

"'Incline your ear an' come unto Me; fear, an' your sawl shall live!' Theer
do seem a hope in that if it ed'n awver-bold me thinkin' so?" he asked.

"That's like them Church o' Englanders, a tearin' wan text away from
t'others an' readin' it accordin' as they pleases. I'll expound it all to
wance, as a God-fearin' man did ought to treat the Scriptures."

Gray Michael's exposition illustrated nothing beyond his own narrow
intellectual limitations. His cold cloud of words obscured the prophet's
sunshine, and the light went out of the dying man's eyes, leaving only
alarm. He trembled on the brink of the horrid truth; he heard it thinly
veiled in the other's stern utterance, saw it looking from his hard blue
eyes. After the sermon, silence followed, broken by Vallack, who coughed
once and again, then raised himself and braced his heart to the tremendous
question that demanded answering.

"I wants your awn feelin' like, mister. I must have it. I caan't sleep no
more wi'out knawin' the best or worst. You be the justest man ever I seed
or heard tell on out the Scriptures. An' I wants 'e to gimme your opinion
like. S'pose you was the Judge an' I comed afore 'e an' the Books was theer
and you'd read 'em an' had to conclude 'pon 'em--?"

The fisherman reflected. Vallack's proposition did not strike him as
particularly grotesque. He felt it was a natural question, and he only