Throwing himself upon the ground, the soldier hid his face upon the fresh green mound and lay exhausted and passive. His friend stood many moments motionless, his eyes uplifted to the sky, where the little white clouds flying across the face of the waning moon gave her a look of hurry and perturbation, as if she too were sore beset by the doubts and temptations of the earthly atmosphere. At last he slowly spoke:-- “Old friend, I am no better or wiser man than you, and I can only speak as a fallible sinner may to one for whose welfare he yearns as for his own. It seems to me that God has already answered you through that dear child who has gone to Him. ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay,’ saith He, and the promise to him that overcometh is as precious and as many-sided as’ the white stone that he shall receive, and which commentators hold to mean the diamond”-- “Enough, enough, man!” cried Standish, starting to his feet. “I cannot listen to so many words. I care naught for commentators or texts. Tell me as man to man, may I go and kill mine enemy or no!” “Well, then, no! You shall here and now kneel down and lay your revenge at the foot of Christ’s cross and leave it there. Man! Has your enemy hurt you more than those who drove the spikes through his hands and feet, what time He prayed ‘Father, forgive them; they know not what they do’? and bethink you how easy vengeance would have been to Him.” “Ay. Knew not what they did!” muttered Standish. “Knowing it or not, that man slew my child, for had it not been for the contract, I would have let her marry Brewster, and she might have been to-day a happy wife and mother.” “And if you will reckon in that fashion,” replied Bradford sternly, “it was surely you who slew Wrestling Brewster, since it was because he might not have Lora that he went to England and found his death. Should not God and our dear Elder have required his blood at your hand?” A great silence was the only answer, and presently Bradford spoke again, and now in the tone of assured conviction and well-grounded authority that in some moods the human soul yearns to hear, especially an ardent, impetuous, and loving soul like that of Standish; a nature that, while the impulse lasts, will dare heaven and hell and earth to achieve its purposes, and when the revulsion comes distrusts all that is within, and turns like a drowning man to some external authority. Such a man makes a good soldier, for as he says, “Go here, and go there!” to those beneath him, he is ready to add, “For I also am a man under authority.” And in this need, characterizing some of the strongest souls that animate humanity, masculine and feminine, lies the yearning for confession and guidance, absolution and penance, that has for centuries been the strongest weapon in the hand of the Catholic Church.