a missionary whom he had heard preach in Nova Scotia came to him. He
remembered what had been said of eternal happiness or eternal
torment--that one or the other state awaited the soul of every one
after death. Then a great terror took possession of him. If Bob Gray
died, as he certainly must in this storm, _he_ would be responsible
for it, and _his_ soul would be consigned to eternal torment--the
terrible torment to last forever and forever, depicted by the
missionary. He had committed many sins in his life, but they were of
the past and forgotten. This was of the present. He could already, in
his frenzied imagination see Dick Blake, the avenger. Dick would
shoot him. That was certain--and then--eternal torment.

The wind moaned outside, and then rose to a shriek. He sprang up and
looked wildly about him. It was the shriek of a damned soul! No, he
had been dozing and it was only a dream, and he lay back trembling.

For a long while he could not go to sleep again. Fear had taken
absolute and complete possession of him--the fear of the eternal
damnation that the missionary had so vividly pictured. It was a
picture that had been received at the time without being seen and
through all these years had remained in his brain, covered and hidden.
This day's work had suddenly and for the first time drawn aside the
screen and left it bare before his eyes displaying to him every
fearful minute outline. He was a murderer and he would be punished.
There was no thought of repentance for sins committed--only fear of a
fate that he shrunk from but which confronted him as a reality and a
certainty--as great a certainty as his rising in the morning and so
near at hand. He got up and looked out. The wind blew clouds of snow
into his face. He could not see the tree that he knew was ten feet
away. It was an awful night for a man to be out without shelter.