That night Adam, who had given up his cabin to the female watchers of the dead, lay stretched at the door of Durgan's hut.
In the small hours Durgan was awakened by the negro's sighs.
"Oh, Adam! Can't you sleep?"
"Oh! Marse Neil, suh; d'you think my pore gal's in de bad place? The min'ster, he come to see me to-day, an' he said as how she was, 'cause she wasn't converted. D'you think so, suh?"
If Durgan had the modern distrust of old-fashioned preaching, he did not feel sure that he knew better than the preacher.
He lay a moment, thinking of the brightness and lightness of the creature so suddenly laid stark, trying in thought to place her spirit in any sort of angelic state. It would not do; the woman, as he knew her, refused to be content with any heaven his thought could offer. He could not conceive of any sane and wholesome spiritual condition to which the trivial, sensual soul could be adjusted.
"Oh, Adam, I don't know any better than your preacher; but I can tell you something that I suppose——"
"Yes, Marse Neil?" The tone told of a deep, sustained attention which surprised the educated man.
"I think the good Lord will take you to the good place when you die, and that——"
"Yes, but marsa, I done gone an' got religion long time ago, an' my pore gal she wer'n't ever converted."