"Because you were not born here. You know, Yon Effendi, we always _expect_ to suffer, because we are Christians. Ever since I can remember, every one was afraid--afraid of the Turks in the street, afraid of the Kamaikan, afraid of the zaptiehs, afraid of the Kourds. Kevork and I were great companions, but I do not think we played much. Sometimes I played with the little ones, but I liked better to help my mother, or to hear the talk of the elders. Then came the dreadful time when Mehmed Ibrahim, our Kamaikan----" "Don't talk of it! You shall never see his face again, my Shushan." "I never have seen it, to my knowledge. I was only ten years old." "When a little English girl would still be playing with her doll, as my cousins used to do. Poor child!" "My childhood ended then. They sent me to Urfa, with some merchants from our town, who were going there. Oh, I was happy there! I had the school, and the dear foreign ladies, and my cousins the Vartonians, and, above all, Elmas Stepanian." "Do you know, my Lily, that Kevork loves Elmas, just a little bit in the way I love you?" "How could he help it?" Shushan said, and smiled quietly. "In the school," she went on, "I learned many things about the Bible, and about our dear Lord, that I did not know before, though I think I always loved Him. They helped me to understand why all the troubles came to us. Has He not said, 'In the world ye shall have tribulation'? But He has said also, 'I am with you always.' If one is true, so must the other be." "Yes," said Jack thoughtfully, "I think I can believe it now." "It all seemed so real in the happy years at school; and afterwards, when I first came back to Biridjik, I felt as if all day long He was close by me; and then all the fear went out of my heart. There was no room for it when He was there." Jack was silent. He feared God, prayed to Him devoutly, and desired sincerely to do His Will; but this experience of His personal presence and nearness was beyond him as yet. "But I could not help seeing how things went on about me," Shushan resumed. "And for a year and more we have been hearing of worse things yet. I did not talk of them, for what was the use of frightening everybody? We could do nothing; we were helpless. But they sank into my heart. Then the horror--about Mehmed Ibrahim--came again. I began to think God had forsaken us. Do you know the sad things about that in the Psalms? They seem just written for us. 'But now Thou art far off, and puttest us to confusion ... so that they that hate us spoil our goods. Thou lettest us be eaten up like sheep, Thou sellest Thy people for nought, and takest no money for them. Thou makest us to be rebuked of our neighbours, to be laughed to scorn, and had in derision of them that are round about us. For Thy sake also we are killed all the day long, and are counted as sheep appointed to be slain.'" "Oh, Shushan, stop! It is too sad."