think from the way she talked that she knew more about sin and salvation than the Lord God Himself, than them who have strove and laboured with the sin in this human world. When the only sin she ever committed was being partial to Jewel that never loved her and was its own punishment, in preference to Darl that was touched by God Himself and considered queer by us mortals and that did love her. I said, “There is your sin. And your punishment too. Jewel is your punishment. But where is your salvation? And life is short enough,” I said, “to win eternal grace in. And God is a jealous God. It is His to judge and to mete; not yours.”
“I know,” she said. “I—” Then she stopped, and I said,
“Know what?”
“Nothing,” she said. “He is my cross and he will be my salvation. He will save me from the water and from the fire. Even though I have laid down my life, he will save me.”
“How do you know, without you open your heart to Him and lift your voice in His praise?” I said. Then I realized that she did not mean God. I realized that out of the vanity of her heart she had spoken sacrilege. And I went down on my knees right there. I begged her to kneel and open her heart and cast from it the devil of vanity and cast herself upon the mercy of the Lord. But she wouldn’t. She just sat there, lost in her vanity and her pride, that had closed her heart to God and set that selfish mortal boy in His place. Kneeling there I prayed for her. I prayed for that poor blind woman as I had never prayed for me and mine.