“Yes, I am Mr Balm.”
“O, I don’t know what to do!” she whispered. “It is so urgent, and they say about you—”
“Nothing unflattering, I trust,” said Gilead smiling, seeing that she paused for an expression.
“O, no, no!” answered the visitor. “But only that one appealing to you—to you above all—may expect—”
Again she stopped. “Reason, I hope,” said Gilead gently. “I try to practise it. Sympathy and help, unless given in reason, are likely to defeat their own objects, are they not?”
“Yes,” said the visitor forlornly; and she seemed to droop a little.
“Does that discourage you?” asked the young man.
She raised her head.
“Is it in reason,” she said, “to expect one, however merciful, however pitiful, to save another from the just consequences of his own misdeeds?”
“That depends,” said Gilead, “whether or not mercy to the sinner entails a wrong to the sinned against.”