"And believing that this book is true, knowing that the furnaces of hell are choked with sinners—knowing this, you and your husband welcome the birth of a human being! God help me, and you, Mrs. Tremaine, forgive me, but I cannot understand these things. Why! you believe that your baby may be damned!"
"How dare you say such things? My child will not be damned. Ah! You poor woman, I see. You have brooded over your own baby's death, and have been dwelling on horrors. I have heard of such cases. Dear Mrs. Claghorn, dismiss such dreadful folly from your mind. Babies are not damned; nobody has believed that for years."
"I do not fear for my child, nor for yours. But you—you cannot be sure he will die. He may grow up—what then?"
"Then he must take his chance," said the would-be mother, though her face grew white. "We must all trust in God's grace."
"But he lends His grace to his Elect only. Unless your infant was chosen from before creation, he must be damned. You say this book is true, and yet you dare to have a child who may burn in hell! How can you commit such wickedness?" In her energy Natalie had arisen, and now stood before the unhappy matron in what to her seemed a threatening attitude.
"I—I—do not comprehend," she faltered. "You have no right to speak thus to me."
"No right! Have I not the right of humanity, the right of a child-bearing woman?"
"But——"
"I had some excuse, I did not know. But you knew—and yet you dared!"
"I didn't," whimpered the lady. "It was the Professor—it was God's work. You talk horribly."