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
his words.

"My sister is no theologian," he answered briefly. "Women have no call
to meddle with such matters. But I was saying--it was in the middle of
these doubtings of mine that you came here to Octavius, and I noticed
you on the streets, and once in the evening--I made no secret of it to
my people--I sat in the back of your church and heard you preach. As I
say, I liked you. It was your face, and what I thought it showed of the
man underneath it, that helped settle my mind more than anything else. I
said to myself: 'Here is a young man, only about my own age, and he has
education and talents, and he does not seek to make money for himself,
or a great name, but he is content to live humbly on the salary of a
book-keeper, and devote all his time to prayer and the meditation of
his religion, and preaching, and visiting the sick and the poor, and
comforting them. His very face is a pleasure and a help for those in
suffering and trouble to look at. The very sight of it makes one believe
in pure thoughts and merciful deeds. I will not credit it that God
intends damning such a man as that, or any like him!'"

Theron bowed, with a slow, hesitating gravity of manner, and deep, not
wholly complacent, attention on his face. Evidently all this was