“Old trapper, you have not answered my question.  Has a man a right to take life?”

“Sartinly,” answered the trapper.

“How?” asked the man.

“In war,” answered the trapper.

“In any other way?” queried the man.

“Yis,—­in self-defence.”

“Any other cause?” persisted the stranger.

“Not as a rule,” answered the trapper.

After this there was a silence.  The girl’s head dropped into her two palms and for an instant her frame shook, as one contesting the passage of a strong feeling that insists on expression.  The three men made no motion, but sat silently gazing into the fire.

For several minutes the silence lasted.  There are two living that will never forget that silence.  Then the man lifted his face and said,—­

“Old trapper, have you ever known remorse?”

“I can’t say I ever did,” answered the trapper; “though I’ve felt a leetle oneasy arter dealin’ with the thievin’ vagabonds whose tracks I’ve found on the line of my traps.  It has seemed to me, sometimes, in the evenin’, in thinkin’ the matter over, that perhaps a leetle less bullet and a leetle more scriptur’ might have did jest as well.  But a man is apt to be a leetle ha’sh in his anger; but I have an idee that the Lord makes some allowance for a man’s doin’s when he’s a good deal r’iled.  That’s where the marcy comes in.  Yis, that’s where the marcy comes in; isn’t it, boy?” and the old man looked at Herbert.

“There is certainly where we need the mercy to come in,” answered Herbert; “but it were better that we acted so that mercy need not be shown.”

The man listened to Herbert’s reply with an expression of strong assent on his countenance, then he turned to the trapper.

“You say, old man, that you never knew remorse.  Happy has your life been because of it; and happy shall your life be to its close.  I have known remorse.  It is a fearful knowledge,—­as fearful as the knowledge of hell.  Woe to the man that does an evil deed.  That instant he is doomed; doomed to anguish.  His divinity punishes him.  Within his bosom the great tribunal is instantly set up.  The judge takes his seat.  The witnesses are summoned; and the whole universe swarms to the trial.  His memory is a torment; and all the forces of his mind suddenly concentrate in memory,—­the memory of one deed, or of many deeds, even as his sin has been sole or manifold.  What torment, old man, is like the torment of one whose memory is confined wholly to his evil deeds!”

No one made any reply.  The anguish of the man’s speech made response impossible.