He spoke not, but with his aspen fingers he pointed backward toward the sloping Highway. Then with all eagerness they endeavored to retrace their steps, but somehow they could do no more than stumble and fall, and when they were making their most desperate effort to return they heard a voice from someone invisible. This voice announced to them that here the path could be traveled only one way. The same voice urged them to push through the shadows and face their end like heroes. At this their hope died within them, and they had no more courage to struggle up the hill. They stood again in their wretched dilemma and heard the sound of distant waters, doleful to their ears, and from this they could distinguish the bitter wails of those who also found that they could not return.
Mr. World and Miss Church-Member cast their eyes heavenward and discerned that they were standing in a very deep valley. _They saw the dim outlines of all their past evil life. Their deeds stretched away at interminable length, and in the aggregate they were piled, like ledge upon ledge, until they verily shut out the mercy of a just God._
Here they stood in the first shadow of their self-constructed Hell.
“Oh, what a valley!” shrieked Miss Church-Member, as her consciousness now revealed to her more in one second than all the fanciful dreams of a life-time evolved.
And Mr. World was undone. He knew not which way to turn. He was speechless as he saw so clearly the worthless product of his life’s work almost overarching him.
Finally Mr. World cried out excitedly: “If we cannot go back, neither will we go forward!”
Then a grim monster spoke in a slow, dead tone: “No one remaineth here; away, away from this place!”
Miss Church-Member was terrorized at the presence of so cold a creature and frantically cried out: “I cannot and will not endure it! Can I not go back to the Voice of Warning?”
“Back? Never! No one who comes thus far ever goes back. During the earthly life of one called Jesus there was but one snatched from these lowlands, and he was the thief on the cross.”
“If there was chance for a thief, there might be hope for me,” she sighed as her wretched face brightened.