Frank but fleeting anxiety filled her eyes as they opened widely to regard him. Great excitement was manifested by Hilary. An expression she had never seen there shone in his countenance as he spoke. It was the same light that she knew as a familiar beacon upon her husband's face; but there it glowed steady and flameless; here it shot up and played like fire. "You believe all that my Dan believes?" "All. Oh, Sarah Jane, the grief of it is greater than the joy; for who, when the light comes, but must look back as well as forward? If I could only look forward! But a man in my case sees the past clear enough--clearer and clearer as the sun sets upon it. My sun-setting will be stormy now. I should have died happy enough with the glorious thought of you and the past; but now 'tis just that thought that will darken all." "Can't you forget? The years and years it was ago! The scores and scores of things that have happened since." "I can't forget. I lament it--I lament for it with my whole heart and soul. I mourn it waking and moan for it sleeping. I'd die a hundred deaths if the time could come again." "This be Christianity?" "Yes; it shows that I have not deceived myself. I am a Christian--therefore this thing that I have done torments me." "How it festers in your mind! I've forgot it--very near. Many a dream that I dream seems more real to me than that." "It's the only reality left in my life." "Then I wish you'd die quick and be at peace," she said fiercely. "I love you so dear that I can wish that for you!" "I'm dying fast enough--yet not fast enough. I'm impatient now to see what mercy means--mercy and forgiveness. I shall know soon. How clear the stages are, Sarah Jane! I wonder if they are so clear with you? First joy and pride in what I'd done; then content and a blessed memory to look back upon; then, as disease got hold of me, and I had to begin to fight for life, clouds came between me and the past. Then the first sharp twinge of regret, as my soul began to waken; then sorrow; then frantic, undying grief and a vain agony of longing that I'd not sinned so damnably against those I loved best in the world. Have you felt so, Sarah Jane?" "Never," she said. "I wept fire for a week after; I was half raving for joy and half raving for misery--mad like. Then I put it all behind me. Things stronger than me--or you--worked that deed. I'll pay the price, if I must. I didn't do it for myself--you know that." "Can't you feel for my sufferings?" At the bottom of her heart flashed a passing scorn; but she expelled it and blamed only his unhappy physical decay. "'Twill all be made up if what you think is right. Your Christ will be so pleased with you for being sorry, that He'll forgive you everything--and me too. We sinners are His sort. The just persons go into heaven without any fuss, by all accounts. 'Tis such as we are--weak, wicked, good-for-noughts--that the angels will blow their trumpets for."