It must be remembered, however, that her selfishness was not the cultivated and ingrained selfishness of a long life, but that of an uneducated, that is undeveloped nature. Her being had not degenerated by sinning against light known as light; it had not been consciously enlightened at all; it had scarcely as yet begun to grow. It was not lying dead, only unawaked. I would not be understood to imply that she was nowise to blame--but that she was by no means so much to blame as one who has but suspected the presence of a truth, and from selfishness or self-admiration has turned from it. She was to blame wherever she had not done as her conscience had feebly told her; and she had not made progress just because she had neglected the little things concerning which she had promptings. There are many who do not enter the kingdom of heaven just because they will not believe the tiny key that is handed them, fit to open its hospitable gate. "Oh, Mr. Ian, if you should be drowned for my sake!" she faltered with white lips. "You should not have come to me!" "I would not wish a better death," said Ian. "How can you talk so coolly about it!" she cried. "Well," he returned, "what better way of going out of the world is there than by the door of help? No man cares much about what the idiots of the world call life! What is it whether we live in this room or another? The same who sent us here, sends for us out of here!" "Most men care very much! You are wrong there!" "I don't call those who do, men! They are only children! I know many men who would no more cleave to this life than a butterfly would fold his wings and creep into his deserted chrysalis-case. I do care to live--tremendously, but I don't mind where. He who made this room so well worth living in, may surely be trusted with the next!" "I can't quite follow you," stammered Christina. "I am sorry. Perhaps it is the cold. I can't feel my hands, I am so cold." "Leave the wall, and put your arms round my neck. The change will rest me, and the water is already falling! It will go as rapidly as it came!" "How do you know that?" "It has sunk nearly a foot in the last fifteen minutes: I have been carefully watching it, you may be sure! It must have been a waterspout, and however much that may bring, it pours it out all at once." "Oh!" said Christina, with a tremulous joyfulness; "I thought it would go on ever so long!" "We shall get out of it alive!--God's will be done!" "Why do you say that? Don't you really mean we are going to be saved?" "Would you want to live, if he wanted you to die?" "Oh, but you forget, Mr. Ian, I am not ready to die, like you!" sobbed Christina. "Do you think anything could make it better for you to stop here, after God thought it better for you to go?" "I dare not think about it."