You
cannot doubt that."
A shadow passed over the rough face.
"I do doubt it," was on his lips, but he could not, rude as he was,
utter such a sentence in presence of the pure, childlike girl.
"Humph," he said, with his habitual growl, "suppose a man is made
utterly wretched in this world--"
"Yes, sir."
"And without any fault of his own suffers horribly," continued the
lawyer, sternly.
"We are all faulty, sir."
"I mean--did anybody ever hear such reasoning! Excuse me, but I am a
little out of sorts," he growled, apologetically--"I mean that you
may suppose a man to suffer some peculiar torture--torture, you
understand--which he has not deserved. I suppose that has happened;
how can such a man have your faith, and love, and trust, and all
that--if we must talk theology!" growled the bearish speaker.
"But, Mr. Rushton," said Redbud, "is not heaven worth all the world
and its affections?"
"Yes--your heaven is."
"_My_ heaven--?"
"Yes, yes--heaven!" cried the lawyer, impatiently--"everybody's heaven
that chooses.
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