u're saying that
now I begin to pay. Yes. When I pay, I'm going to _pay_. And I'm
not going to take my martyrdom for immediate sake of any crown,
either. There is none for me. I reckon I sinned too far against
one of God's angels. I reckon it's maybe just lasting hell for me,
and not a martyrdom with an end to it some time. That's how _I've_
got to pay.

"Now, do you want me to tell you all the rest?"

She would not answer, and he resumed.

"Do you want me to tell what you've maybe heard, about this house?
Do you want me to tell whose garments those were that you saw? Do
you want my past? Do you want to see my bowels dragged out before
your eyes? Do you want to turn the wheel with your own hands? Do
you want me to pay, that way?"

She went to him swiftly, put a hand on his arm.

"No!" said she. "What I want you to believe is that it's _life_
makes us pay, that it's _God_ makes us pay.

"I want you to believe, too," she went on after a time, "that we
need neither of us be cheap. I'm not going to ask you one thing,
I'm not going to listen to one word. You must not speak. I must
go. It's just because I must go that I shall not allow you to
speak."

"Is my debt to you paid, then?" His voice trembled.

"So far as it runs to me, it is paid."

"What remains?"

"Nothing but the debt of yourself to yourself. I'm going to look
back to a strange chapter in my life--a life which has had some
strange ones. I'm not going to be able to forget, of course, what
you've said to me. A woman loves to be loved. When I go, I go;
but I want to look back, now and then, and see you still paying,
and getting richer with each act of courage, when you pay, to
yourself, not me."

"Ah! fanatic. Ah! visionary. Ah! dreamer, dreamer. And you!"

"That is the rest of the debt. Let the wheel turn if need be.
Each of us has suffering. Mine own is for the faith, for the
cause."

"For what faith? What cause do you mean?"

"The cause of the world," she answered vaguely. "The cause of
humanity. Oh, the world's so big, and we're so very little. Life
runs away so fast. So many suffer, in the world, so many want! Is
it right for us, more fortunate, to take all, to eat in greed, to
sleep in sloth, to be free from care, when there are thousands, all
over the world, needing food, aid, sympathy, opportunity, the
chance to grow?

"Why," she went on, "I put out little plants, and I love them,
always, because they're