"Not hopeless, not blighted," he said quickly. "Nothing blights a life but sin."
"But it is sin," she protested. "I never used to think myself a sinner, but I know that I am one now. And the worst of it is, I have not marred my own life only; I have hurt my mother and my sisters too."
"Yes, yes; I understand just how you feel," he said, and the grave, kind tones seemed to promise help. "Mind, I do not say that you have not sinned. I would rather counsel you to cherish that sense of sin. For it is the hardness of heart that cannot discern between good and evil, which sins without suffering and does evil without pain, that is the hopeless state. We may even be thankful for the wrong-doing that leads to the broken heart and the contrite spirit."
"I cannot be thankful for my wrong-doing," said Juliet; "it has spoiled my life, it will spoil the lives of others. Sometimes I think that I would not mind if it were only I who suffered, for I deserve it. There are hours when I feel so to hate myself that I long for punishment."
"Then cannot you accept the sad results of your sin as a punishment sent to you by your loving Father?"
"I could, I could," sobbed Juliet, "if it would make me better! But when people look on me so hardly, when I know they are saying unkind things of me, it makes me feel bad. I may hate myself, certainly, but I hate them too. I am ready to go on being wicked."
"But who would be so unkind to you?" he asked. "Surely you exaggerate the unkindness."
Juliet shook her head sorrowfully.
"But He, the Divine Brother, the Saviour of sinners, will help you to overcome, in spite of every hindrance which the coldness of others may raise. Surely you see now, as you never did before, the meaning of the Divine Sacrifice offered for sin! You feel the need of it in your own life?"
"Yes, yes," murmured Juliet; "and oh, I will try to be different. But tell me what I must do. I cannot leave mother; she would be miserable if I went away from her. Yet if I stay with her—she is so indulgent to me—I fear I shall fall into the old self-willed ways again."