“God?” he echoed. “I know no God! If there were a God, I shouldn’t be where I am now.”
“Then I will know it for you,” she softly answered. “And you are now right where you belong, in Him. And His love is about you.”
“Love!” He laughed bitterly. “Love! I never knew what it meant. My parents didn’t teach it to their children. And when I tried to learn, my father kicked me into the street!”
“Then, Sidney, I’ll teach you. For I am in the world just to show what love will do.”
“My father––it’s his fault––all his fault!” cried the boy, flaring up and struggling to rise. “God! I hate him––hate him! It’s his fault that I’m a sot and a drug fiend!”
“It is hate, Sidney, that manifests in slavery, in sodden brains, and shaking nerves. You don’t hate your father; the hate is against your thought of him; and that thought is all wrong. We’re going to correct it.”
“I used to drink––some, when I lived at home,” the boy went on, still dwelling on the thoughts that held him chained. “But he could have saved me. And then I fell in love––I thought it was love, but it wasn’t. The woman was––she was years older than I. When she left the city, I followed her. And when I found out what she was, and came back home, my father threw me out––cut me off––God!”
“Never mind, Sidney,” the girl whispered. “It isn’t true anyway.” But she realized that the boy must voice the thoughts that were tearing his very soul, and she suffered him, for it uncovered to her the hidden sources of his awful malady.
“And then I drank, drank, drank!” he moaned. “And I lay in the gutters, and in brothels, and––then, one day, Carlson told me to come and work for him. He thought I could straighten up. And so I went to a doctor, and he––God curse him!––he injected morphine into my arm to sober me. And that taught me that I could drink all I wanted to, and sober up on morphine. But then I learned––I found––”