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"Look here," she said, as he put down the voucher; "there ain't goin' to be no more prayin', eh?"

"Why, to be sure there is," he answered with a show of great cheerfulness; and reached for a chair.

"I'd liefer you didn't. I don't want it. I don't hold by any o't. You'm very kind," she went on, her voice trembling for an instant and then recovering its firmness, "and I reckon it soothed mother. But I reckon it don't soothe me. I reckon it rubs me the wrong way. There's times, when I hears a body prayin', that I wishes we was Papists again and worshipped images, that I might throw stones at 'em!"

She paused, looked up into Geake's devouring eyes, and added, with a poor attempt at a laugh:

"So you see, I'm wicked, an' don't want to be saved."

Then the man broke forth:

"Saved? No, I reckon you don't! Wicked? Iss, I reckon you be! But saved you shall be--ay, if you was twice so wicked. Who'll do it? I'll do it--I alone. I don't want