'If I possibly can, darling.'
'Oh, I want you so badly! I think you'll help me not to be so miserable. I'm very ill, you know; the pain's often bad, and then I think I'm going to die at once, and—and if I did, I'm certain I shouldn't—go to heaven.'
'Agatha!'
With attempted bravado Agatha laughed.
'No, of course I shouldn't! I'm beastly selfish, and I've never done anything but think grumbles at God. I'm not resigned a bit,—not meek and humble of heart,—I don't see why I should be.'
'Don't you? Have you never thought about the debt we sinners owe to the Son of the Heavenly Father, who died upon the cross for us, that we might become entitled to the glorious eternity of heavenly life?'
'But God made me,—crippled, useless, invalided as I am!'
'But, dearie, suppose some great physician came to tell you that you must suffer and be helpless for one short hour, and that then you would recover your health and strength for eighty or ninety years, would you not bless his name?'
'Of course I would!'
'And supposing that the physician had obtained your cure through making some colossal sacrifice himself as a propitiation?'