hunt down Markham? If he saved Markham, he would answer to the law for
his own breach of duty--this would be at least some sacrifice. Was not
this course a more God-like one?

There was one part of Toyner that spoke out clearly and said that his
duty was exactly what he had esteemed it to be before Ann Markham
appealed to him. He believed this part of him to be his conscience.

All the rest of him slowly veered round to thoughts of mercy rather than
legal duty; he thought of Ann and Christa with hard, godless hearts,
surrounded by every form of folly and sin, and he believed that Ann
would keep her promise to him, and that different surroundings would
give them different souls. Yet he felt convinced that God and conscience
forbade this act of mercy.

One thing he was as certain of now as he had been at the beginning--that
if he disobeyed God, God would leave him to the power of all his evil
appetites; he felt already that his heart gave out thoughts of affection
to his old evil life.

As the hours passed he began to realise that he would need to disobey
God. He found himself less and less able to face the thought of giving
up this rare opportunity of winning Ann's favour and an influence over
her--_moral_ influence at least; his mind was clear enough to see that
what was gained by disobeying God's law was from a religious point of
view nil. In his mind was the beginning of a contempt for God's way of
saving him. If he was to win his own soul by consigning Ann and her
father to probable perdition, he did not want to win it.

The August morning came radiant and fresh; the air, sharp with a touch