her heart, and prayed for something to say to the sad
human soul that had never known the Father. But she could think of
nothing to talk about except the death of William Marston. So she began
with the dropping of her watch, and, telling whatever seemed at the
moment fit to tell, ended with the dream she had the night of his
funeral. By that time the hidden fountain was flowing in her soul, and
she was able to speak straight out of it.

"I can not tell you, sir," she said, closing the story of her dream,
"what a feeling it was! The joy of it was beyond all expression."

"You're not surely going to offer me a dream in proof of anything!"
muttered the sick man.

"Yes," answered Mary--"in proof of what it can prove. The joy of a
child over a new toy, or a colored sweetmeat, shows of what bliss the
human soul is made capable."

"Oh, capable, I dare say!"

"And more than that," Mary went on, adding instead of replying, "no one
ever felt such gladness without believing in it. There must be
somewhere the justification of such gladness. There must be the father
of it somewhere."

"Well! I don't like to say, after your kindness in coming here to take
care of me, that you talk the worst rubbish I ever heard; but just tell
me of what use is it all to me, in the state I am in! What I want is to
be free of pain, and have some pleasure in life--not to be told about a
father."

"But what if the father you don't want is determined you shall not have
what you do want? What if your desire is not worth keeping you alive
for? And what if he is ready to help your smallest effort to be the
thing he wants you to be--and in the end to give you your heart's
desire?"

"It sounds very fine, but it's all so thin, so up in the clouds! It
don't seem to have a leg to stand upon. Why, if that were true,
everybody would be good! There would be none but saints in the world!
What's in it, I'm sure I don't know."

"It will take ages to know what is in it; but, if you should die now,
you will be glad to find, on the other side, that you have made a
beginning. For my part, if I had everything my soul could desire,
except God with me, I could but pray that he would come to me, or not
let me live a moment longer; for it would be but the life of a devil."

"What do you mean by a devil?"

"A power that lives against its life," said Mary.

Mr. Redmain answered nothing. He did not perceive an atom of sense in
the words. They gave him not a glimme