"Well, what is it, child?" "Nothing, nothing, nothing, Aunt Bell--it's only what he _is_." "What he _is_? A handsome, agreeable, healthy, good-tempered, loyal, upright, irreproachable--" "Aunt Bell, he's _killing_ me. I seem to want to laugh when I tell you, because it's so funny that he should have the power to--but I tell you he's killing out all the good in me--a little bit every day. I can't even _want_ to be good. Oh, how stupid to think you could see--that any one could see! Sometimes I do forget and laugh all at once. It's as grotesque and unreal as an imaginary monster I used to be afraid of--then I'm sick, for I remember we are bound together by the laws of God and man. Of course, you can't see, Aunt Bell--the fire hasn't eaten through yet--but I tell you it's burning inside day and night." She laughed a little, as if to reassure her puzzled listener. "A fire eating away inside, Aunt Bell--burning out my goodness--if the firemen would only come with engines and axes and hooks and things, and water--I'd submit to being torn apart as meekly as any old house--it hurts so!" CHAPTER VIII THE APPLE OF DOUBT IS NIBBLED The rector of St. Antipas came from preaching his Easter sermon. He was elated. Of the sermons delivered in New York that morning, he suspected that his would be found not the least ingenious. Telling excerpts would doubtless appear in the next day's papers, and at least one paper would reprint his favourite likeness over the caption, "Dr. Allan Delcher Linford, the Handsome and Up-to-Date Rector of St. Antipas." Under this would be head-lines: "The Resurrection Proved; a Literal Fact in History not less than a Spiritual Fact in the Human Consciousness. An Unbroken Chain of Living Witnesses." He even worded scraps of the article on his way from the church to his study: