urpose of the author
unfold itself in a series of tense and terrible scenes. The comedy over
which the crowd laughed with such contagious merriment was even more
sinister than the serious parts. No matter what the situation--whether
set to laughter, to terror, or to tears--beneath it all throbbed one
insistant question:

"Has the woman who sells herself for money a soul?"

With breathless interest he watched the cruel carving of her body into
tiny pieces. Without sniffling, whining, or apology, with arms bared
and gleaming scalpel firmly gripped in a hand that never quivered once,
the author dissected her. Always he could hear this white invisible
figure bending over each scene talking to the audience in his quiet
terrible way:

"Well, if be she has a soul, we shall find it. Perhaps it's here!" The
knife flashed and the crowd laughed. The result was so unexpected, yet
so remarkable they had to laugh.

"We'll try again!" the white figure said with a smile, "Perhaps we
should go deeper."

And then with firm strong hand the last secret of muscle and nerve and
bone was laid bare and the white face looked into the eyes of the
audience through a mist of tears.

"I'm sorry, my friends. But we must face the truth. It's better to know
the truth, however bitter, than to believe a lie. I do not dogmatize. I
do not draw conclusions. I merely show you the thing that is."

With a soft rush the big curtain came down in a silence that could be
felt. The dazed crowd waked from the spell and poured into the aisles,
while Stuart still sat gripping the arms of his seat with strangling
emotion.

At last he said to himself with choking emphasis:

"He was cruel, inhuman, unjust--I refuse to believe it--she has a
soul---- She has a soul!"

And yet a question had been raised in his mind that was destined to
change the whole motive and purpose of his life.

CHAPTER XI

ILLUMINATION

Stuart left the theatre with the mysterious conviction stirring within
him that only God could have directed his steps to that building. The
more overwhelming the author's argument the fiercer became his
rebellion and the higher rose this cry of his heart for a nobler faith
in the possibilities of humanity. He began dimly to feel that the
source of light and love might be very near if he but had eyes to see.
As yet he was in the dark, but he felt in a dim way that he was groping
toward the light and that suddenly his hand might touch the spr