"AND GOD SPAKE ALL THESE WORDS--."

"No," he said, over and over, "I shall not give her up. It is
preposterous. Yet my father believed it. He died with his hand on the
old Bible, his finger in the leaves--my mother--"

"AND GOD SPAKE ALL THESE WORDS--." The sentence seemed to flash through
the rift over the shot-tower--to tingle down from the stars.

There are no true perverts. When man strips him to the bare buff, he is
of the complexion his mother bestowed upon him. When his life's
card-castle, laboriously piled, tumbles ignominious, he is again of his
mother's religion.

"AND GOD--."

John Arniston stepped to the edge of the parapet. He looked over into
the slow, swirling black water. It was a quick way that--but no--it was
not to be his way. He looked at his watch. It was time to go to the
office. He had an article to do. As well do that as anything. But first
he would write a letter to her.

Shut in his room, his hand flying swiftly lest it should turn back in
spite of him, John Arniston wrote a letter to Miriam Gale--a letter that
was all one lie. He could not tell her the true reason why he would not
go on the morrow. Who was he, that he should put himself in the attitude
of being holier than Miriam Gale? It was certainly not because he did
not wish to go--or that he thought it wrong. Simply, his father's
calf-skin Bible barred the way, and he could no more pass over it than
he could have trampled over his mother's body to his desire.