'windows of paradise,'" responded his companion, with quiet
irony, and Gerald Goddard shrank under the familiar smile as under a
blow.

"Gerald," she went on, after a moment of painful silence, but with a
note of pity pervading her musical tones, "a man can never escape the
galling consciousness of wrong that he has done until he repents of
it; even then the consequences of his sin must follow him through
life. Yours was a nature of splendid possibilities; there was scarcely
any height to which you might not have attained, had you lived up to
your opportunities. You had wealth and position, and a physique such
as few men possess; you were finely educated, and you were a superior
artist. What have you to show for all this? what have you done with
your God-given talents? how will you answer to Him, when He calls you
to account for the gifts intrusted to your care? What excuse, also,
will you give for the wreck you have made of two women's lives? You
began all wrong; in the first place, you weakly yielded to the selfish
gratification of your own pleasure; you lived upon the principle that
you must have a good time, no matter who suffered in consequence--you
must be amused, regardless of who or what was sacrificed to subserve
that end--"

"You are very hard upon me, Isabel; I have been no worse than hundreds
of other men in those respects," interposed Gerald Goddard, who
smarted under her searching questions and scathing charges as under a
lash.

"Granted that you 'are no worse than hundreds of other men,'" she
retorted, with scornful emphasis, "and more's the pity. But how does
that lessen the measure of your responsibility, pray tell me? There
will come a time when each and every man must answer for himself. I
have nothing to do with any one else, but I have the right to call you
to account for the selfishness and sins which have had such a baneful
influence upon my life; I have the right, by reason of all that I have
suffered at your hands--by the broken heart of my youth--the loss of
my self-respect--the despair which so nearly drove me to crime--and,
more than all else, by that terrible renunciation that deprived me of
my child, that innocent baby whom I loved with no ordinary
affection--I say I have the right to arraign you in the sight of
Heaven and of your own conscience, and to make one last attempt to
save you, if you will be saved."

"What do you care--what does it matter to you now whether I am saved
or l