that once I had a soul, and it was sinful; but that God was merciful and destroyed it, with its record, when He destroyed my baby.  The doctor swore to me that it never drew a separate breath; no, not one.  Tell me, Jack!  A child that has never breathed can know neither heaven nor hell—­questions of baptism do not touch it—­ it goes out of darkness into darkness and is annihilated.  Is that not so?  So I assure myself, and sometimes I think that by the same stroke God wiped out the immortal part of me with its sins, that my body and brain go on living, but that the soul of your Hetty will never come up for judgment, for it has ceased to be.”

“Monstrous!”

“You understand,” she went on wearily, “that this is but one of my thoughts.  My heart denies it whenever I long to creep back to Wroote and listen to the old voices and be a child once more.  But I am showing you what is the truth—­that upon one plea or another I put my soul aside and excuse myself from troubling about it.”

“Sadder hearing there could not be.  You have an imperishable soul, and owe it a care which should come before your duty even to your husband.”

“Ah, Jack, you may be a very great man:  but you do not understand women!  I wonder if you ever will?  For now you do not even begin to understand.”

He would have answered in hot anger, but a noise on the path prevented him.  Four sportsmen came wending homeward in the dusk, shouldering their guns and laughing boisterously.  In the loudest of the guffaws he recognised the voice of Dick Ellison.

“Hallo!” The leader pulled himself up with a chuckle.  “Here’s pretty goings-on—­the little parson colloguing with a wench!  Dick, Dick, aren’t you ashamed of your relatives?”

“Ashamed of them long ago,” stuttered Dick, lurching forward.  He had been making free with the flask all day.  “Who is it?” he demanded.

“Come, my lass—­no need to be shy with me!  Let’s have a look at your pretty face.”  The fellow plucked at Hetty’s hood.  John gripped his arm, was flung off with an indecent oath, and gripped him again.

“This lady, sir, is my sister.”

“Eh?” Dick Ellison peered into Hetty’s face.  “So it is, by Jove!  How d’ye do, Hetty?” He turned to his companion.  “Well, you’ve made a nice mistake,” he chuckled.

The man guffawed and slouched on.  In two strides John was after him and had gripped him once more, this time by the collar.

“Not so fast, my friend!”

“Here, hands off!  This gun’s loaded.  What the devil d’you want?”

“I want an apology,” said John calmly.  “Or rather, a couple of apologies.”  He faced the quartette:  they could scarcely see his face, but his voice had a ring in it no less cheerful than firm.  “So far as I can make out in this light, gentlemen, you are all drunk.  You have made one of those foolish and disgusting mistakes to which men in liquor are liable:  but I should suppose you can muster up sense enough between you to see that this man owes an apology.”