The judge and the lookers-on were puzzled by this persistency. It did not seem in character. For the first time in his life, Rankin felt the need of words. The moral perplexity was too great for him to deal with; he was reaching out for something to take hold of, a thing which his self-contained, crudely disciplined nature had never craved before.
"It's an awful thing to send a soul to hell," he muttered.
Then, in his extremity, he felt a soft touch upon his arm. Myra Beckwith stood beside him.
"Ed," she said, with the sweet seriousness which had first attracted him, and now at last there was the tone in her voice which he would have given his life to hear,—"Ed, think of the seven souls you have delivered out of hell! I was over to see them yesterday."
The consolation of that voice and touch calmed his troubled spirit, restored him to himself; the nightmare of the last two days faded and slid away. He stood a moment in awkward silence, while Myra's hand rested upon his arm; then, before them all, he laid his hand upon it, and, with the solemnity of a priest before the altar, he said, "I guess it was the Lord that done it, after all!"
