speak with as much eagerness as he did
with force, bringing the whole power of his soul into his words, which
were the words of a man in rebellion against the greatest odds on earth
and in all creation--the odds of fate itself.

"I have come to say a good deal, Mr. Wheaton," he began.

"Then say it, Mr. Dodd," replied Stephen, without a smile.

Christopher spoke. "I am going back to the very beginning of things,"
said he, "and maybe you will think it blasphemy, but I don't mean it for
that. I mean it for the truth, and the truth which is too much for my
comprehension."

"I have heard men swear when it did not seem blasphemy to me," said
Stephen.

"Thank the Lord, you ain't so deep in your rut you can't see the stars!"
said Christopher. "But I guess you see them in a pretty black sky
sometimes. In the beginning, why did I have to come into the world
without any choice?"

"You must not ask a question of me which can only be answered by the
Lord," said Stephen.

"I am asking the Lord," said Christopher, with his sad, forceful voice.
"I am asking the Lord, and I ask why?"

"You have no right to expect your question to be answered in your time,"
said Stephen.

"But here am I," said Christopher, "and I was a question to the Lord
from the first, and fifty years and more I have been on the earth."

"Fifty years and more are nothing for the answer to such a question,"
said Stephen.

Christopher looked at him with mournful dissent; there was no anger
about him. "There was time before time," said he, "before the fifty
years and more began. I don't mean to blaspheme, Mr. Wheaton, but it is
the truth. I came into the world whether I would or not; I was forced,
and then I was told I was a free agent. I am no free agent. For fifty
years and more I have thought about it, and I have found out that, at
least. I am a slave--a slave of life."

"For that matter," said Stephen, looking curiously at him, "so am I. So
are we all."

"That makes it worse," agreed Christopher--"a whole world of slaves. I
know I ain't talking in exactly what you might call an orthodox strain.
I have got to a point when it seems to me I shall go mad if I don't talk
to somebody. I know there is that awful why, and you can't answer it;
and no man living can. I'm willing to admit that sometime, in another
world, that why will get an answer, but meantime it's an awful thing to
live in this world without it if a man has had the kind of life I have.
My