"Yes, I saw her," responded the elder, shaking his head in a pompous way.
"I went to administer consolation. I'm just coming from there now. It is
an awful judgment on that man: no chance for repentance, overtook by
hell, as I told Mrs. Davis, in a moment! But the Lord must be praised for
his justice: that ought to comfort her."

"Good heavens!" cried Helen, "you did not tell that poor woman her
husband was overtaken by hell?"

"Ma'am," said Mr. Dean, fairly stuttering with astonishment at the
condemnation of her tone--"I--I--did."

"Oh, shame!" Helen said, heedless of the listeners around them. "How
dared you say such a thing? How dared you libel the goodness of God?
Tom Davis is not in hell. A man who died to save another's life? Who
would want the heaven of such a God? Oh, that poor wife! How could you
have had the heart to make her think God was so cruel?"

There was a dead silence; Elder Dean was too dumfounded to speak, and the
others, looking at Helen's eyes flashing through her tears of passionate
pain, were almost persuaded that she was right. They waited to hear more,
but she turned and hurried away, her breath quick, and a tightened
feeling in her throat.

The elder was the first to break the spell of her words, but he opened
his lips twice before a sound came. "May the Lord forgive her! Tom Davis
not in hell? Why, where's the good of a hell at all, then?"

Helen's heart was burning with sympathy for the sorrow which had been so