"Tha'rt talkin' riddles, Rector!"

"No. Ask yourself. When you fell into sin with that woman, did nothing
speak to you, nothing try to stop you?"

The bright half-mocking eyes below Meynell's wandered a little--wavered
in expression.

"It was the hot blood in me--aye, an' in her too. Yo cawn't help them
things."

"Can't you? When your wife suffered, didn't that touch you? Wouldn't you
undo it now if you could?"

"Aye--because I'm goin'--doctor says I'm done for."

"No--well or ill--wouldn't you undo it--wouldn't you undo the blows you
gave your wife--the misery you caused her?"

"Mebbe. But I cawn't."

"No--not in my sense or yours. But in God's sense you can. Turn your
heart--ask Him to give you love--love to Him, who has been pleading with
you all your life--love to your wife, and your fellow men--love--and
repentance--and faith."

Meynell's voice shook. He was in an anguish at what seemed to him the
weakness, the ineffectiveness, of his pleading.