"She is not here," he said one day. "You know that, Uncle Robert."
"She's up above," returned the other, brokenly. "My poor, wronged child!"
Frank stared at him a moment. "Do you believe in the conventional Heaven?"
"Why--er--yes," said Windham, startled. "Don't you, Frank?"
"No," said Stanley, doggedly. "Not in that ... nor in a God that lets men suffer and be tempted into wrongs they can't resist ... makes them suffer for it."
"What do you mean? Are you an atheist?" asked Windham, horrified.
"No ... but I believe that God is Good. And knows no evil. Sometimes in the night when I've sat thinking, Bertha seems to come to me; tells me things I can't quite understand. Wonderful things, Uncle Robert."
The other regarded him silently, curiously. He seemed at a loss.
"I've learned to judge men with less harshness," Frank spoke on. "Ruef and Schmitz, for instance.... Every now and then I see the Mayor pacing on the ferryboat. It's rather pathetic, Uncle Robert. Did God raise him up from obscurity just to torture him? He's had wealth and honor--adoration from the people. Now he's facing prison. And those poor devils of Supervisors; they've known luxury, power. Now they're huddled like a pack of frightened sheep; everybody thinks they're guilty. Ruef's forsaken them. Ruef, with his big dream shattered, fleeing from the law...."
He faced his uncle fiercely, questioning. "Is that God's work? And Bertha's body lying there, because of the sins of her forebears! Forgive me, Uncle Robert. I'm just thinking aloud."