Then she spoke more bluntly.
“You are too visionary,” she said. “You are too spiritual, too religious and high-minded to cope with the crowd that is hunting you. They have planned your destruction, and they are going to accomplish it. There isn’t any God anywhere who can save you. You’ve got to save yourself or you’ll perish. I know it. I had to tell you this. I wouldn’t be human if I kept it to myself.”
He did not reprove her or try to reason with her. The argumentative stage in the struggle had long passed by. But he was equally blunt and insistent in his answer.
“Mrs. Bradley,” he said, “if I were sure that my crusade would bring me to the debtor’s prison or the hangman’s rope, I would not abate one jot or tittle from my effort. My reason and my conscience have convinced me that I am right; and my duty to God and myself and my fellow-men impels me irresistibly forward.”
He said it with such intensity of expression, both of looks and voice, that Barry, easily moved as he always was, half rose from his chair, and brought his hands together with a resounding whack.
“That’s the stuff!” he exclaimed. “Farrar, you’re game to the backbone! I’m with you, old man; count on me!” Then his eyes fell upon Mrs. Bradley, and he began to apologize. “Pardon me, Mary! I didn’t think. You don’t want him to stick it out, do you?”
She did not answer him at once. Her eyes were moist, and her lip was trembling. When she did speak she said:
“You don’t need to apologize, Barry. You’ve spoken for me.”
She rose and held out her hand to the minister in farewell. “I have done my errand,” she said. “I came on it sincerely and earnestly and with a good conscience, and—I thank God it has failed.”
It was not an expression of piety, for she was not pious; but no other words, in that moment, could have embodied her thought. She turned toward the door.