"Guildea," the Father said, with insistent earnestness, "try to endure this—do more—try to give this thing what it seeks."
"But it seeks my love."
"Learn to give it your love and it may go, having received what it came for."
"T'sh! You talk as a priest. Suffer your persecutors. Do good to them that despitefully use you. You talk as a priest."
"As a friend I spoke naturally, indeed, right out of my heart. The idea suddenly came to me that all this,—truth or seeming, it doesn't matter which,—may be some strange form of lesson. I have had lessons—painful ones. I shall have many more. If you could welcome——"
"I can't! I can't!" Guildea cried fiercely. "Hatred! I can give it that,—always that, nothing but that—hatred, hatred."
He raised his voice, glared into the emptiness of the room, and repeated, "Hatred!"
As he spoke the waxen pallor of his cheeks increased, until he looked like a corpse with living eyes. The Father feared that he was going to collapse and faint, but suddenly he raised himself upon his chair and said, in a high and keen voice, full of suppressed excitement:
"Murchison, Murchison!"
"Yes. What is it?"