The boy's room was furnished in the manner of the curate's chamber--which, indeed, was severe and chaste enough: for the curate practiced certain monkish austerities not common to the clergy of this day. It was a white, bare little room, at the top of the house, overlooking the street: a still place, into which, at bedtime, no distraction entered to break the nervous introspection, the high, wistful dreaming, sadly habitual to the child when left alone in the dark. But always, of fine mornings, the sun came joyously to waken him; and often, in the night, when he lay wakeful, the moon peeped in upon the exquisite simplicity, and, discovering a lonely child, companionably lingered to hearten him. The beam fell over the window-sill, crawled across the floor, climbed the bare wall. There was a great white crucifix on the wall, hanging in the broad path of the moonlight. It stared at the boy's pillow, tenderly appealing: the head thorn-crowned, the body drawn tense, the face uplifted in patient agony. Sometimes it made the boy cry. "They who sin," he would repeat, "crucify the dear Lord again!" It would be very hard, then, to fall asleep.... So did the crucifix on the wall work within the child's heart--so did the shadows of the wide, still house impress him, so did the curate's voice and gentle teaching, so did the gloom, the stained windows, the lofty arches, the lights and low, sweet music of the Church of the Lifted Cross favour the subtle change--that he was now moved to pain and sickening disgust by rags and pinched faces and discord and dirt and feverish haste and all manner of harshness and unloveliness, conceiving them poignant as sin.... Mother and son were in the park. It was evening--dusk: a grateful balm abroad in the air. Men and women, returning from church, idled through the spring night. "But, dear," said his mother, while she patted his hand, "you mustn't _hate_ the wicked!" He looked up in wonder. "Oh, my! no," she pursued. "Poor things! They're not so bad--when you know them. Some is real kind." "I could not _love_ them!" "Why not?" "I _could_ not!" So positive, this--the suggestion so scouted--that she took thought for her own fate. "Would you love me?" she asked. "Oh, mother!" he laughed. "What would you do," she gravely continued, "if I was--a wicked woman?" He laughed again. "What would you do," she insisted, "if somebody told you I was bad?" "Mother," he answered, not yet affected by her earnestness, "you could not be!" She put her hands on his shoulders. "What would you do?" she repeated. "Don't!" he pleaded, disquieted. Again the question--low, intense, demanding answer. He trembled. She was not in play. A sinful woman? For a moment he conceived the possibility--vaguely: in a mere flash of feeling. "What would you do?" "I don't know!" She sighed. "I think," he whispered, "that I'd--die!"