"Mercy!" gasped weak little Elvira Carney. "Have mercy!"

"Mercy?" scoffed Mrs. Comstock. "Mercy! That's a nice word from you! How
much mercy did you have on me? Where's the mercy that sent Comstock to
the slime of the bottomless quagmire, and left me to see it, and then
struggle on in agony all these years? How about the mercy of letting me
neglect my baby all the days of her life? Mercy! Do you really dare use
the word to me?"

"If you knew what I've suffered!"

"Suffered?" jeered Mrs. Comstock. "That's interesting. And pray, what
have you suffered?"

"All the neighbours have suspected and been down on me. I ain't had a
friend. I've always felt guilty of his death! I've seen him go down a
thousand times, plain as ever you did. Many's the night I've stood on
the other bank of that pool and listened to you, and I tried to throw
myself in to keep from hearing you, but I didn't dare. I knew God would
send me to burn forever, but I'd better done it; for now, He has set the
burning on my body, and every hour it is slowly eating the life out of
me. The doctor says it's a cancer----"

Mrs. Comstock exhaled a long breath. Her grip on the hoe relaxed and her
stature lifted to towering height.

"I didn't know, or care, when I came here, just what I did," she said.
"But my way is beginning to clear. If the guilt of your soul has come
to a head, in a cancer on your body, it looks as if the Almighty didn't
need any of my help in meting out His punishments. I really couldn't fix