“She has hardly touched any sort of food since Jennie died,” Mrs. Mayfield asserted, in a tremulous tone. “She is wasting away. She can't sleep even under opiates. She cries constantly, and declares she can't get her mind from it for a moment. We ought not to have allowed her to see the end, but we could not avoid it. Jennie was conscious almost to the last minute, though she did not realize she was dying. They thought it best not to tell her, and she begged Ethel and her parents and me and the young man she was to marry--begged us not to leave her. She seemed quite afraid. Then suddenly she had a terrible convulsion. She was clinging to my daughter's hand when she died. Ethel fainted, and had to be taken home in a carriage. She--she--Paul, she has lost all faith in the goodness of God, in an after-life, in everything. She is simply desperate and defiant. She can't be made to see any sort of justice in it. She is bitter, very bitter, and hard and resentful. Two kind-hearted ministers down there tried to talk to her, but she almost laughed in their faces. Some sweet old ladies--intimate friends of ours--tried to pacify her, too, but could do nothing. I wish you had been there. You have comforted me more than any one else ever did. Your faith seems such a living, active thing, and even while down there under all that sadness I found myself somehow feeling that your thoughts--your prayers were with us.” “Yes, yes,” he nodded, his blood mounting to his face, “that was all I could do. Prayer is a wonderful force, but unfortunately it seems without great or immediate effect unless it arises out of faith itself, and perfect faith is very rare.” “I understand,” the lady sighed. “I hear Ethel coming down. I wish you would talk to her. I am sure you can do her good, and something must be done. No medicine can help her; her trouble is of the mind. It is natural for persons to lose faith under a shock like this, and in time get over it; but--but, Paul, I've known people to die of grief, and that is really what I am afraid of.” Ethel, as she descended the veranda steps, saw them. She wavered for a moment, as if undecided which way to go, and then, as if reluctantly, she came on to them. Paul noted the drawn whiteness of her face and the dark rings about her despairing eyes. Her whole being seemed to vibrate from a tense state of nervousness. Her lips were fixed in a piteous grimace as she gave Paul her hand. “Mother's told you about it, I am sure,” were her first words. “Yes,” he nodded, sympathetically, “it is very sad.” She took a deep, tremulous breath, and her lips were drawn tight as from inner pain. “Paul,” she said, bitterly, “I didn't know till now that even an _omnipotent_ God could invent a thing as horrible as all that was. If--if it would amount to anything I would curse him--actually curse him.”