"My dear, would you let Louise frizzle if it were in your hands? Why, you've driven yourself half crazy with fear for her, as it is. Can't you give God credit for a little common humanity? I'm not much of a Bible reader, but I seem to remember something about a sparrow falling to the ground——Now follow it up," he went on urgently. "If Louise's life was so little worth living that she threw it away—doesn't it prove she had her hell down here? If you insist on a hell. And when she was dead, poor baby, can't you trust God to have taken charge of her? And if He has—as He must have—do you think that child—that happy child, Alwynne, for if God exists at all, He must exist as the very source and essence of peace and love—that that child would or could wrench itself apart from God, from its happiness, in order to return to torment you? Is it possible? Is it probable? In any way feasible?"
Alwynne caught her breath.
"How you believe in God! I wish I could!"
Roger flushed suddenly like an embarrassed boy.
"You know, it's queer," he confided, subsiding naïvely, "till I began to talk to you, I didn't know I did. I never bother about church and things. You know——"
But Alwynne was not attending.
"Of course—I see what you mean," she murmured. "It applies to Louise too. Why, Roger, she was really fond of me—not as she was of Clare—of course—but quite fond of me. She never would have hurt me. Hurt? Poor mite! She never hurt any one in all her life."
"I wonder you didn't think of that before," remarked Roger severely. "I hope you see what an idiot you've been?"
"Yes," said Alwynne meekly. She did not flash out at him as he had hoped she would: but her manner had grown calm, and her eyes were peaceful.
"Poor little Louise!" said Alwynne slowly. "So we needn't think about her any more? She's to be dead, and buried, and forgotten. It sounds harsh, doesn't it? But she is dead—and I've only been keeping her alive in my mind all this year. Is that what you mean?"