Troubled at an astonishment which seemed to partake of the nature of alarm, she silently bowed her head.
"And you were looking at him—actually looking at him—that very moment through a telescope perched a mile or so away?"
"Yes," she bowed again.
Turning his face aside, Mr. Orcutt walked to the hearth and began kicking the burnt-out logs with his restless foot. As he did so, Imogene heard him mutter between his set teeth:
"It is almost enough to make one believe in a God!"
Struck, horrified, she glided anxiously to his side.
"Do not you believe in a God?" she asked.
He was silent.
Amazed, almost frightened, for she had never heard him breathe a word of scepticism before,—though, to be sure, he had never mentioned the name of the Deity in her presence,—she stood looking at him like one who had received a blow; then she said:
"I believe in God. It is my punishment that I do. It is He who wills blood for blood; who dooms the guilty to a merited death. Oh, if He only would accept the sacrifice I so willingly offer!—take the life I so little value, and give me in return——"