r lifted a finger
to prevent the change. I didn't resist once; I didn't make any fight.
I just walked deliberately down-hill, with my eyes wide open. I told
myself all the while that I was climbing uphill instead, but I knew in
my heart that it was a lie. Everything about me was a lie. I wouldn't be
telling the truth, even now, if--if I hadn't come to the end of my rope.
Now, how do you explain that? How can it be explained? Was I really
rotten to the core all the time, years ago, when I seemed to everybody,
myself and the rest, to be good and straight and sincere? Was it all a
sham, or does God take a good man and turn him into an out-and-out bad
one, in just a few months--in the time that it takes an ear of corn to
form and ripen and go off with the mildew? Or isn't there any God at
all--but only men who live and die like animals? And that would explain
my case, wouldn't it? I got bitten and went vicious and crazy, and
they've had to chase me out and hunt me to my death like a mad dog! Yes,
that makes it all very simple. It isn't worth while to discuss me at
all as if I had a soul, is it? I'm just one more mongrel cur that's gone
mad, and must be put out of the way. That's all."

"See here," said Sister Soulsby, alertly, "I half believe that a good
cuffing is what you really stand in need of. Now you stop all this
nonsense, and lie quiet and keep still! Do you hear me?"

The jocose sternness which she assumed, in words and manner, seemed to
soothe him. He almost smiled up at her in a melancholy way, and sighed
profoundly.

"I've told you MY religion before," she went on with gentleness. "The
sheep and the goats are to be separated on Judgment Day, but not a
minute sooner. In other words, as long as human life lasts, good, bad,
and indifferent are all braided up together in every man's nature, and
every woman's too. You weren't altogether good a year ago, any more than
you're altogether bad now. You were some of both then; you're some
of both now. If you've been making an extra sort of fool of yourself
lately, why, now that you recognize it, the only thing to do is to slow
steam, pull up, and back engine in the other direction. In that way
you'll find things will even themselves up. It's a see-saw with all
of us, Theron Ware--sometimes up; sometimes down. But nobody is rotten
clear to the core."

He closed his eyes, and lay in silence for a time.

"This is what day of the week?" he asked, at last.

"Friday, the