"Surely!" agreed Leslie. "You were waiting for Nellie the night she came from the tamarack swamp with me, and she told me you had a little box, and that with its contents you had threatened to 'freeze her soul,' if she had a soul. I'll be logical and fair, and ask but the _one_ question I first stipulated. Here it is: did you wait until you made sure she had a soul, worthy of your consideration, before you froze it?" James Minturn's laugh was ugly to hear. "My dear girl," he said. "I made sure she had _not_ three years ago." "And I made equally sure that she had," said Leslie, "in the tamarack swamp when she wrestled as Jacob at Peniel against her birth, her environment, her wealth, and triumphed over all of them for you and her sons. I can't go on with my own plan for personal happiness, until I know for sure if you perfectly understand that she came to you that night to confess to you her faults, errors, mistakes, sins, if need be, and ask you to take the head of your household, and to help her fashion each hour of her life anew. Did she have a chance to tell you all this?" "No," said Mr. Minturn. "But it would have made _no difference,_ if she had. It came too late." "You have not the right to say that to any living, suffering human being!" protested Leslie. "I have a perfect right to say it to her," said Mr. Minturn. "A right that would be justified in any court in the world, either of lawyers or people." "Then thank God, Nellie gets her trial higher. He will understand, and forgive her." "You don't know what she did," said Mr. Minturn. "What she stood before me and the officers of the law, and admitted she did." "I don't care what she did! There were men forgiven on the cross; because they sincerely repented, God had mercy on them, so He will on her, and what's more, He won't have any on _you_, unless you follow His example and forgive when you are asked, by a woman who is as deeply repentant as she was." "Her repentance comes too late," said Mr. Minturn with finality. "Her error is _not reparable_." "There is no such thing as true repentance being too late," insisted Leslie. "You are distinctly commanded to forgive; you have got to do it! There is no error that is reparable. Since you hint tragedy, I will concede it. If she had been directly responsible for the death of her child, it was a mistake, criminal carelessness, but not a thing purposely planned; so she could atone for it by doing her best for you and the boys." "Any mother who once did the things she did is not fit to be trusted again!" "What nonsense! James Minturn, you amaze me!" said Leslie. "That is a little too cold masculine logic. That is taking from the whole human race the power to repent of and repair a mistake." "There are some mistakes that cannot be repaired!" "I grant it," said Leslie. "There are! _You are making one right now!_" "That's the most strictly feminine utterance I ever heard," said Mr. Minturn, with a short laugh.