"Natalie," he said, and now he took her hand in his, noting its cool freshness again his own hot palm. "We cannot live thus; we are married. We must be husband and wife."
"You dare not create victims of hell," she whispered.
"Natalie, you would impiously abrogate God's holy ordinance. Marriage is enjoined by Scripture. Sin of the most heinous character is born of neglect of this ordinance of God."
"Leonard, Leonard," she cried, "you can have no assurance that your children will be saved. Only the elect."
"All, dying in infancy are elect," he answered impatiently. "That is the universal belief of to-day."
She grew very white as she looked at him; her eyes were big with horror. "Do you mean," she asked hoarsely, "that we should murder our babies?"
"Murder!" he exclaimed, amazed.
"Since only infants are certainly saved——"
He burst into a discordant laugh. "Natalie," he said, "as a reasoner you would do credit to Brigston."
"I can see no other way," she said after a pause. "My reasoning may be defective, but you do not show me its defects. Surely you believe the Confession and the catechisms?"