"
"You don't believe in infant damnation, do you? At least not on
earth, do you?"
"I cannot control the evil impulses of others. The doctrines of the
Church cannot be modified for the convenience of every sinner."
"You advise against divorce, then?"
"I am unalterably opposed to it."
"What is your solution, then, of this situation?"
"I shall have to think it over--and pray. Please go. You have
staggered me."
"When you have thought it over will you give me the help of your
advice?"
"Certainly."
"Then shall I wait till I hear from you?"
"If you will."
"Good-by, Doctor Mosely."
"Good-by, Mrs.--Charity--my child!"
He pressed her long hand in his old palms. He was trembling. He was
like a priest at bay before the altar while the arrows of the infidel
rain upon him. These arrows were soft as rain and keen as silk. He
was more afraid of them than if they had been tipped with flint or
steel.
Charity left the parsonage no wiser than she entered it. She had
accomplished nothing further than to ruin Doctor Mosely's excellent
start on an optimistic discourse in the prevailing fashion of the
enormously popular "Pollyanna" stories: it was to be a "glad" sermon,
an inexorably glad sermon. But poor Doctor Mosely could not preach
it now in the face of this ugly fact.
Charity went home with her miserable triumph, which only emphasized
her defeat.
She found at home a mass of details pressing for immediate action
if the big moving-picture project were not to lapse into inanity.
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