“No; that’s nothing; that was a common crime.”
“Well, I have no right to ask you anything further. But in any given case of expiation, the trouble is that a man can’t expiate alone; he makes a lot of other people expiate with him.”
“Yes; you can’t even sin alone. That is the curse of it, and then the innocent have to suffer with the sinners. But I meant—the children.”
“Yes; I let them die.”
Ray understood now that it was remorse for his exposure of the little ones to contagion which was preying on him. “I don’t think you were to blame for that. It was something that might have happened to any one. For the sake of your family you ought to look at it in the true light. You are no more responsible for your children’s death than I am.” Ray stopped, and Denton stared as if listening.
“What? What? What?” he said, in the tone of a man who tries to catch something partly heard. “Did you hear?” he asked. “They are both talking at once—with the same voice; it’s the twin nature.” He shook his head vehemently, and said, with an air of relief: “Well, now it’s stopped. What did you say?”
“I didn’t say anything,” Ray answered.
“Oh! It was the Voice, then. You see it was a mistake not to do it sooner; I ought to have given them; not waited for them to be taken. I couldn’t understand, because in the flesh they couldn’t speak. They had to speak in the spirit. That was it—why they died. I thought that if I took some rich man who had made his millions selfishly, cruelly—you see?—it would satisfy justice; then the reign of peace and plenty could begin. But that was wrong. That would have made the guilty suffer for the innocent; and the innocent must suffer for the guilty. Always! There is no other atonement. Now I see that. Oh, my soul, my soul! What? No! Yes, yes! The best, the purest, the meekest! Always that! Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission—Who do you think is the best person in New York—the purest, the meekest?”
“Who?” Ray echoed.