“All hope abandon ye who enter here.”
That was the matter with himself. He had abandoned all hope. Over the leaf his eye ran down the page:
“This miserable fate
Suffer the wretched souls of those who lived
Without praise or blame, with that ill band
Of angels mixed, who nor rebellious proved
Nor yet were true to God, but for themselves
Were only.”
How well he remembered the minister's little comments as he read, how the sermons had impressed themselves upon his heart as he listened, and yet here he was, himself, in hell! He turned over the pages again quickly unable to get away from the picture that grew in his mind, the vermilion towers and minarets, the crags and peaks, the “little brook, whose crimson'd wave, yet lifts my hair with horror,” he could see it all as if he had lived there many years. Strange he had not thought before of the likeness of his life to this. He read again:
“O Tuscan! thou who through the city of fire
Alive art passing,—”
Yes, that was it. A City of Fire. He dwelt in a City of Fire! Hell! There was a hell on earth to-day and mortals entered it and dwelt there. He lived in that City of Fire continually now. He expected to live there forever. He had sinned against God and his better self, and had begun his eternal life on earth. It was too late ever to turn back. “All Hope abandon, ye who enter here.” He had read it and defied it. He had entered knowing what he was about, and thinking, poor fool that he was, that he was doing a wise and noble thing for the sake of another.
Over in the little parsonage, the white souled girl was walking in an earthly heaven. Ah! There was nothing, nothing they had in common now any more. She lived in the City of Hope and he in the City of Fire.
He flung out the book from him and dropped his face into his hands crying softly under his breath, “Oh, Lynn, Lynn—Marilyn!”