Chapter 8 - Page 2

that."

"Such a preposterous question!" she replied, but she was startled and
frightened by it and more so by the anger in John's face and voice. In a
moment the truth flashed upon her consciousness and it roused just as
quickly an intense contradiction and a willful determination not only to
stand her ground but to justify her position.

"If this is your catechism, John, I have not yet learned it."

"Sit down, Jane. You must tell me the truth if it takes all the day. You
had better sit down."

Then she threw herself into the large easy chair he pushed towards her;
for she felt strangely weak and trembling and John's sorrowful, angry
manner terrified her.

"Jane," he said, "I have heard to my great grief and shame that it is
your fault we have no more children."

"I think Martha is one too many." At the moment she uttered these words
she was sorry. She did not mean them. She had only intended to annoy
John.

And John cried out, "Good God, Jane. Do you know what you are saying?
Suppose God should take the dear one from us this night."

"I do not suppose things about God. I do not think it is right to
inquire as to what He may do."

"Jane, it is useless to twist my question into another meaning. Suppose
you had not destroyed our other children before they saw the light?"

"John," she cried, "how dare you say such dreadful things to me? I will
not listen to you. Open the door. You might well put the key in your
pocket--and I have been so ill. I have suffered so much--it is
dreadful"--and she fell into a fit of hysterical weeping.

John waited patiently until she had sobbed herself quiet, then he
continued, "When I think of my sons or daughters, _written down in God's
Book_ and blotted out by _you_."

"I will not listen. You are mad. Your 'sons or daughters' could not be
hurt by anyone before they had life."

"They always had life. Before the sea was made or the mountains were
brought forth,

'Ere suns and moons could wax and wane,
God thought on _me_ his child,'

and on _you_ and on _every soul_ made for immortality by the growth that
fresh birth gives it. He loves us with an everlasting love. No false
mother can destroy a child's soul, but she can destroy its flesh and so
retard and interfere with its eternal growth. This is the great sin--the
sin of blood-guiltiness--any woman may commit it."

"You talk sheer nonsense, John. I do not believe anything you say."

Then John went to a large Bible lying open on a table. "Listen, then,"
he said, "to the Word of