“But He couldn’t!” said Gila, with the old petulant tone.  “I’ve hated Him all my life!  I hate Him now!  And I’ve never been good!  I couldn’t be good!  I don’t want to be good!  I want to do just what I please!  And I will!  I won’t hear you talk this way!  I want to get up!  Why does my body feel so queer and numb, as if it wasn’t there?  Am I dying now?  Answer me quick!  Am I dying? I know I am. I’m dying and you won’t tell me!  I’m dying and I’m afraid!  I’M AFRAID!”

One piercing scream after another rang out through the corridors.  In vain did Bonnie and the nurse seek to soothe her.  The high, excited voice raved on: 

“I’m afraid to die!  I’m afraid of that Presence!  Send for Paul Courtland!  He tried to tell me once, and I wouldn’t hear!  I made him choose between me and God!  And now I’m going to be punished!”

“Listen, dear!” went on Bonnie’s steady, tender voice.  “God doesn’t want to punish.  He wants to save.  He is waiting to forgive you if you will let Him!”

Something in her low-spoken words caught and held the attention of the soul in mortal anguish.  Gila fixed her great, anguishing eyes on Bonnie.

“Forgive!  Forgive!  How could anybody forgive all I’ve done!  You don’t know anything about such things”—­half contemptuously.—­“You’ve always been goody-good!  I can see it in your look.  You don’t know what it is to have men making fools of themselves over you!  You don’t know all I’ve done!  I’ve been what they call a sinner!  I sent away the only man I ever loved because I was jealous of God!  I broke the heart of the man who loved me because I got tired of him and his everlasting perfection!  I hated the idea of being a mother, and when my child came I deserted her!  I would have killed her if I had dared!  I went away with a bad man!  And when I got tired of him I took the first way that opened to get away from him!  God doesn’t forgive things like that!  I didn’t expect He would when I did them.  But it wasn’t fair not to let me live out my life!  I’m too young to die!  And I’m afraid!  I’m AFRAID!”

“Yes.  God forgives all those things!  There was a woman once who had been like that, and Jesus forgave her.  He will forgive you if you ask Him.  But He can’t forgive you unless you are sorry and really want Him to.  He says, ’Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow; and though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool,’ but you have to be sorry first that you sinned.  He can’t forgive you if you aren’t sorry.”

“Sorry! Sorry!” Gila’s laugh rang out mirthlessly and echoed in the high, white room.  “Oh, I’m sorry, all right!  What do you think I am?  Do you think I’ve been happy?  Don’t you know that I’ve suffered torments?  Everything has turned to ashes that I’ve touched!  I’ve gone everywhere and done everything to try to forget myself, but always there was that awful Presence chasing me!  Standing in my way everywhere I turned!  Driving me!  Always driving me toward hell!  I’ve tried drowning my thoughts with cocktails and dope, but always when it wore off there would be the Presence of God pursuing me!  Do you mean to tell me there is forgiveness for me with Him?”