“Still I think you did right,” James said stubbornly.  “She had to die anyway.  Death was upon her.  You simply hastened it.”

Gordon looked at James, and his eyes seemed to fairly blaze with somber fire; for a moment the young man thought his reason was unhinged.  “But what am I?  Who is any man to take whip or spur to the decrees of the Almighty, to hasten them?”

“She was suffering—­” James began.

“What of that?  Who can say, though she had led the life of a saint on earth, so far as any one could see, what subtle sins of life itself her pains were counteracting?  Who can tell but I have deprived her of untold joys which would have compensated a thousand times for those pains by shortening them?”

“Doctor Gordon, you are morbid,” James said, looking at him uneasily.

“How do you know I am morbid?  Then that other—­Mendon.  Who is to say that I was right even about that?  It is probable I saved your life, and possibly my own, as well as Clemency from misery.  But who can say that death would not have been better for both you and me than life, and even misery for Clemency had that man lived?  God had allowed him life upon the earth.  I may have shortened that life.  He was a monster of wickedness, but who can say that he was not a weapon of God, and that I have not done incalculable mischief by depriving him of that weapon?  There is only one consolation which I have with regard to him; unless my diagnosis was entirely at fault, he would have had that attack of erysipelas anyway.  I hardly think I deceive myself with regard to that, and there is a very probable chance that the attack would have been fatal.  He had nearly lost his life twice before with the same disease.  That I know, and I do not think that unless the poison was already in his blood, it would have developed so rapidly from that slight bruise.  So far as the simple wound from the dog went, he was in no danger whatever.  I have that consolation in his case, in not being absolutely certain that I caused his death; I am not even absolutely sure that I hastened it by any appreciable time.  He might have been attacked that very night with the disease.  Still there is, and always will be, the slight doubt.”

“I don’t think you ought to brood over that, Doctor Gordon,” James said soothingly.  He went close to the older man and laid a hand upon his shoulder.  Gordon looked up at him, and his face was convulsed.  He spoke with solemn and tragic emphasis.  “It is not for mortal man to interfere with the ways of God, and he does so at his own peril,” he said.

CHAPTER XIV