She watched him as he lay there, smitten down in the midst of his life and of health. He was quiet, now, except that his hands never ceased moving, tearing slowly in strips the delicate handkerchief he found within his reach, pulling shreds from the palm-leaf fan that lay on the bed, or picking at the blanket. It was the only sign of agitation he showed. His face was deeply flushed, his breathing heavy, and his teeth seemed to be set.
Once he raised himself, and looked through the open window at the treetops, and the city spires and domes. Margaret wondered if they looked strange to him, and what thoughts he had; but she never knew.
After waiting as long as she dared, she spoke to him. "Can I talk to you a little, Mr. Granger, without disturbing you?" she asked.
"Speak," he said; "you never disturb me."
She began, and without any useless words, explained to him the fundamental doctrines of the church, original sin, the redemption, the necessity and effects of baptism. What she said was clear, simple, and condensed. A hundred times during the last two years she had studied it over for just such need as this.
"You know of course," she concluded, "that I say this because I want you to be baptized. Are you willing?"
"I would like to do anything that would satisfy you," he said presently. "But you would not wish me to be a hypocrite? You cannot think that baptism would benefit me, if I received it only because you wanted me to. I don't think that I have led a bad life. I have not knowingly wronged any one. I am sorry for those sins which, through human frailty, I have committed. But if I were to live my life over again, I doubt if I should do any better. No, child, I think it would be a mockery for me to be baptized now."
She changed the cloth on his head, laid the ice close to his burning temples, and fanned him in silence a few minutes.
Then she began again, repeating gently the command of our Saviour regarding baptism, and his charge to the church to baptize and teach.
"It is impossible to force conviction," he said. "I cannot profess to believe what I do not."