If I'd lay
hand on you for anything, it would be for that."
"Kill me if you want to," sobbed Elvira Carney. "I know that I deserve
it, and I don't care."
"You are getting your killing fast enough to suit me," said Mrs.
Comstock. "I wouldn't touch you, any more than I would him, if I could.
Once is all any man or woman deceives me about the holiest things of
life. I wouldn't touch you any more than I would the black plague. I am
going back to my girl."
Mrs. Comstock turned and started swiftly through the woods, but she had
gone only a few rods when she stopped, and leaning on the hoe, she stood
thinking deeply. Then she turned back. Elvira still clung to the fence,
sobbing bitterly.
"I don't know," said Mrs. Comstock, "but I left a wrong impression with
you. I don't want you to think that I believe the Almighty set a cancer
to burning you as a punishment for your sins. I don't! I think a lot
more of the Almighty. With a whole sky-full of worlds on His hands to
manage, I'm not believing that He has time to look down on ours, and
pick you out of all the millions of us sinners, and set a special kind
of torture to eating you. It wouldn't be a gentlemanly thing to do, and
first of all, the Almighty is bound to be a gentleman. I think likely
a bruise and bad blood is what caused your trouble. Anyway, I've got
to tell you that the cleanest housekeeper I ever knew, and one of the
noblest Christian women, was slowly eaten up by a cancer.
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