“But what had Ames said to you, Carmen?” persisted Hitt, his face dark with anger.
The girl smiled feebly. “I see Mr. Ames only as––as God’s child,” she murmured. “Evil is not real, and it doesn’t happen. Now I want to work––work as I never did before! I must! I must!”
“Will you not tell me more about it?” he asked, for he knew now that a deadly thrust had been made at the girl’s life.
She brushed the tears away from her eyes. “It didn’t happen,” was her reply. “Good is all that is. God is life. There is no death!”
A suspicion flashed into Hitt’s mind, kindled by the girl’s insistence upon the nothingness of death. “Carmen,” he asked, “did he tell you that––some one had died?”
She came to him and laid her head against him. Her hands stole into his. “Don’t! Please, Mr. Hitt! We must never 203 speak of this again! Promise me! I shall overcome it, for God is with me. Promise that no one but us shall know! Make Sidney promise. It––it is––for me.”
The man’s eyes grew moist, and his throat filled. He drew the girl to him and kissed her forehead. “It shall be as you wish, little one,” he said in a choking voice.
“Now set me to work!” she cried wildly. “Anything! This is another opportunity to––to prove God! I must prove Him! I must––right here!”
He turned to his desk with a heavy heart. “There is work to be done now,” he said. “I wonder––”
She took the telegram from his hands and scanned it. At once she became calm, her own sorrow swallowed up in selfless love. “Oh, they have gone out at Avon! Those mothers and children––they need me! Mr. Hitt, I must go there at once!”