“You see!” said the invalid, bitterly. “And I loved that man once! And there are worthy people who would say I ought to love him still. Love him? Tell my little Lulu to love a cat or a hawk. How can I love what I find on testing to be repugnant to my own nature? Tell me, Toussaint, does God require we should love what we know to be impure, unjust, cruel?” “Ah, madame, the good God, I suppose, would have us love the wicked so far as to help them to get rid of their wickedness.” “But there are some who will not be helped,” said the invalid. “Take the wickedness out of some persons, and we should deprive them of their very individuality, and practically annihilate them.” “God knows,” replied Toussaint; “time is short, and eternity is long,—long enough, perhaps, to bleach the filthiest nature, with Christ’s help.” “Right, Toussaint. What claim have I to judge of the capacities for redemption in a human soul? But there is a terrible mystery to me in these false conjunctions of man and woman. Why should the loving be united to the unloving and the brutal?” “Simply, madame, because this is earth, and not heaven. In the next life all masks must be dropped. What will the hypocrite and the impostor do then? Then the loving will find the loving, and the pure will find the pure. Then our bodies will be fair or ugly, black or white, according to our characters.” “I believe it!” exclaimed the invalid. “Yes, there is an infinite compassion over all. God lives, and the soul does not die, and the mistakes, the infelicities, the shortcomings of this life shall be as fuel to kindle our aspirations and illumine our path in another stage of being.” Here a clamorous newsboy stopped on the other side of the way to sell a gentleman an Extra. “What is that boy crying?” asked the invalid. “A great steamboat accident on the Mississippi,” replied Toussaint. CHAPTER XV. WHO SHALL BE HEIR? “I care not, Fortune, what you me deny, You cannot rob me of free Nature’s grace; You cannot shut the windows of the sky, Through which Aurora shows her brightening face.” _Thomson._ When we parted from Mr. Pompilard, he was trying to negotiate a mortgage for thirty thousand dollars on some real estate belonging to his wife. This mortgage was effected without recourse to the Berwicks, as was also a second mortgage of five thousand dollars, which left the property so encumbered that no further supply could be raised from it.