"I felt as if he was accusing me of not giving him water when he was fevered, or bread if he was hungry. Then he said he remembered something he used to hear when he was little and he had hardly ever heard of it since. But he had heard other things. And I guessed he was remembering he had lived with the people who used the name of Jesus Christ only to swear by. He had heard, he told me, that Jesus Christ was the son of God, and God sent Him here to save sinners, and, if sinners called on Him to save them, they would be saved. And then he looked at me for a minute with that same look, as if he hated me, and he said: "'You don't believe it. You wouldn't let me suffer like this, if you did.' "And all my spirit broke up in me, and my legs were weak under me, and the tears ran down on my face, and I said to him: "'I do believe it.' "'Will you swear it?' he asked me. He was very wild then. 'Will you swear by Jesus Christ it is so?' "'Yes,' I said, 'I will swear.' "And I fell on my knees by the bed and said: 'Let us pray.' And I prayed, in what words I don't know, but my hand was on his, and when I said Amen, he said Amen, too, and when I looked at him all the trouble was smoothed out of his face and he said, 'Jesus Christ!' as he never could have said it in his life before. It was as if you were speaking to your mother or your friend (yet not just a friend, but a heavenly friend) and shortly he died. And I had told him a lie. But I was not sorry. I was glad. What was my keeping my poor soul clean to old Billy Jones's dying in peace? It was the last thing I could give him, and he was welcome to it.