bewilderment, and then terror and then anguish so great that it cannot be described, pain so horrible that it is not good for man even to think upon it. Incredible as it may seem, her head moved, her lips relaxed, her set jaw unclenched, her tongue spoke thickly. "God!" she said. The same word that he had used, that final word that comes to the lips when the heart is wrung, or the body is racked beyond human endurance. The universal testimony to the existence of the Divine, that trouble and sometimes trouble alone, wrings from man. No human name, not even his, upon her lips in that first instant of realization! "How I—suffer," she faltered weakly. Her eyes closed again, the poor woman had told her God of her condition, that was all she was equal to. Man and human relationships might come later. The man knelt by her side, his hands upraised. "Louise," he whispered, "speak to me." Her eyes opened again. "Will," the anguished voice faltered on, "I am—broken—to pieces—kill me. I can't[Pg 12] stand—kill me"—her voice rose with a sudden fearful appeal—"kill me." [Pg 12] Then the eyes closed and this time they did not open, although now he overwhelmed her with words, alas, all he had to give her. At last his passion, his remorse, his love, gushing from him in a torrent of frantic appeal awakened her again. She looked him once more in the face and once more begged him for that quick relief he alone could give. "Kill me." That was her only plea. There has been One and only One, who could sustain such crucifying anguish as she bore without such appeal being wrested from the lips, yet even He, upon His cross, for one moment, thought God had forsaken and forgotten Him! She was silent, but she was not dead. She was speechless, but she was not unconscious, for she opened her eyes and looked at him with such pitiful appeal that he would fain hide his face as he could not bear it, and yet again and again as he stared down into her eyes he caught that heart breaking entreaty, although now she made no sound. Every twisted bone, every welling vein, every scarred and
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