"If the drawing back can right the wrong."
"It can help toward it. These people—who live in China, remember—are perhaps among those who ought never to have made the pledge. However, let us drop them. I want to talk to you about a more important matter."
Still she did not talk, but relapsed again into troubled silence, and Claire, not knowing what to say, waited, and said nothing.
"Would you marry a man, if you thought you might possibly be the means of saving his soul?"
Claire was startled and a trifle disturbed to think that the conversation was still to run in a channel with which she was so unfamiliar. Still, this first question was comparatively easy to deal with.
"That might depend on whether I could do so without assuming false vows. I could not promise a lie for the sake of saving any soul. Besides, it being wrong in itself, I would have no reason to hope that it would be productive of any good, for God does not save souls by means which are sinful. Why do you ask me all these questions, Alice? I have no experience, and am not wise. I wish you would seek a better counselor."
"Never mind, I have all the counsel I desire. I am not talking about those people in China any more, though you think I am. I was thinking of you, and of somebody who is in danger, and whom I believe you could save, but I know you won't—at least not in that way. Claire Benedict, I am troubled about my brother. Tell me this, do you know that he is in danger?"
"Yes," said Claire, her voice low and troubled.
"Do you know from what source I mean?"