"Every line of either," he answered defiantly and in anger. Had he not labored night and day for a year past to demonstrate the truth of the "Standards"?
"Then," she answered sadly, "you have no right to become a father. Fathers and mothers are instruments of the devil. According to your belief, no sin can compare with the sin of bringing forth a creature so offensive to God that it must suffer eternal punishment. You may believe that you and I are both to dwell together in hell. If that be our fate we must submit. But our children, Leonard! Shall we earn their hatred in life, and watch their torments in unquenchable fires?"
"Do you compare yourself and me, and children born of us, to the depraved mass of humanity? Have you no assurance of God's gracious mercy?"
"God's gracious mercy!" she repeated. "God's gracious mercy!"
"Natalie," he said, making a great effort to speak calmly. "You who but a short time since had no religion, surely you will concede that I know something of that which has been the study of my life. I tell you that your reasoning is frantic nonsense; it would be blasphemous if it were not for your ignorance."
"You believe the Confession true—every line. I have studied it; I have studied your book. Prior to that I had spent a whole day, in this very room, reading——"
He laughed, but as before there was no mirth in the laugh. "A whole day," he said, "and this profound research enables you to contend with me in a science that I have studied all my life."
"On that day," she answered, shuddering, "the fires of hell blazed before my eyes and I heard the wails of damned souls. In a day much may be learned. If what I then saw be true—I do not know—you say it is; you say hell is——"
"And say it again," he interrupted. "If I had never known it before, I would know it now."
"Then, Leonard, you must justify me. Since God cannot save the innocent——"