“Suppose you had been in her image, what then?”
“You would have had some respect for me!”
“Then she was nearer the image of God than you?”
“Thousands of miles!”
“Did you ever know a bad woman?”
“Know a bad woman? Hundreds that would take your heart’s blood as you slept to make a philtre with!”
“Then you saw a difference between such a woman and your mother?”
“The one was of heaven, the other of hell—that was all the little difference!”
“Did you ever know a bad woman grow better?”
“No, never.—Stop! let me see. I did once know a woman—she was a married woman too—that made it all the worse—all the better I mean: she took poison—in good earnest, and died—died, sir—died, I say—when she came to herself, and knew what she had done! That was the only woman I ever knew that grew better. How long she might have gone on better if she hadn’t taken the poison, I can’t tell. That fixed her good, you see!”