"Good God!" said Mark, rising, "don't stop there. If you must accuse yourself, pass judgment also. Class yourself where you have chosen with your eyes open to stand. Would you allow any amount of provocation and unhappiness to excuse a systematic fraud? Do you think that the thief brought up to sin has less or more excuse than you have? Are you the only person who has known a lonely childhood? Can you tell me here in this room that God never showed you what love really is? He has never left you alone, and you wish in vain now that He would leave you alone. For your present life is so unbearable that you feel that you may choose death rather than go on with it." "I shall pay heavily for the relief of speech if I am to have a sermon preached all to myself," said Molly insolently. "I was speaking of the need of human love; I was speaking of all I had suffered, and it is easy for you to retort upon me that I might have had Divine Love only that I chose to reject it. Tell me, were you brought up without a mother's love?" "No; I had--I have a mother who loves me almost too much." "Have you known real loneliness?" "I believe every man and woman has known that the soul is alone." Molly shook her head. "That is a mood; mine was a permanent state. Have you ever known what it is to see God's will on one side, and all possibilities of human happiness, glory, success, and pleasure, opposed to it?" The young man blushed deeply. "Yes, I have." Molly was checked. "I forgot," she answered; "but still you don't understand. You were an intimate friend of God when He asked you for the sacrifice, whereas I--I had only an inkling, a suspicion of that Love. Besides, you were not asked to give all your possessions to your enemies! No; too much has been asked of me." "Can too much be asked where all has been given?" asked Father Molyneux. "That is an old point for a sermon," said Molly wearily. "You don't understand; you are of no use to me. Good-bye! I don't think I shall come again." CHAPTER XXX THE BIRTH OF A SLANDER After that visit to Father Molyneux the devil seems to have entered into Molly. It was a devil of fear and, consequently, of cruelty. What she did to harm him was at first unpremeditated, and it must be allowed that she had not at the moment the means of knowing how fearful a harm such words as hers could do. She said them too when terror had driven her to any distraction, and when wine had further excited her imagination. Still it would not be surprising to find that many who might have forgiven her for a long, protracted fraud, would blot her out of their own private book of life for the mean cruelty of one sentence. Not many hours had passed after the visit before Molly was furious with herself for her consummate folly in giving herself away to the young priest, who might even think it a duty to reveal what she said.