Page:Weird Tales volume 31 number 03.djvu/8

 fifteen minutes we were home, just as our rescued human flotsam showed signs of returning consciousness.

"Be careful," warned de Grandin as he helped the passenger alight, "If you behave we shall treat you with the kindness, but if you try the monkey's tricks I have in readiness a second portion of the dish I served you on the Pont du Nord.

"Here," he added as we led our captive to the study, "this is the medicine for those who feel at odds with life." He poured a gill of Scots into a tumbler and poised the siphon over it. "Will you have soda with your whisky," he inquired, "or do you like it unpolluted?"

"Soda, please," the other answered sulkily, drained his glass in two huge gulps and held it out again.

"Eh bien," the Frenchman chuckled, "your troubles have not dulled your appetite, it seems. Drink, my friend, drink all you wish, for the evening is still young and we have many things to talk of, thou and I."

The visitor eyed him sullenly as he took a sip from his fresh glass. "I suppose you think you've done your Boy Scout's good deed for today?" he muttered.

"Mais oui, mais certainement," the Frenchman nodded vigorously. "We have saved you from irreparable wrong, my friend. Le bon Dieu did not put us here to"

"That's comic!" the other burst out with a cackling laugh. Le bon Dieu'—much use He has for me!"

De Grandin lowered his arching brows a little; the effect was a deceptively mild, thoughtful frown. "So-o," he murmured, "that is the way of it? You feel that you have been cast off, that"

"Why not? Didn't we—I—cast Him out? didn't I deny Him, take service with His enemies, mock at Him"

"Be not deceived, my friend"—the double lines between the Frenchman's narrow brows was etched a little deeper as he answered in an even voice—"God is not mocked. It is easier to spit against the hurricane than jeer at Him. Besides, He is most merciful, He is compassionate, and His patience transcends understanding. Wicked we may be, but if we offer true repentance"

"Even if you've committed the unpardonable sin?"

"Tiens, this péché irrémissible of which the theologians prate so learnedly, yet which none of them defines? You had a mother, one assumes; you may have sinned against her grievously, disappointed her high hopes in you, shown ingratitude as black as Satan's shadow, abused her trust or even done her bodily hurt. Yet if you went to her sincerely penitent and told her you were sorry, that you truly loved her and would sin no more, parbleu, she would forgive, you know it! Will the Heavenly Father be less merciful than earthly parents? Very well, then. Who can say that he has sinned past reconciliation?"

"I can; I did—we all did! We cast God out and embraced Satan" Something that was lurking horror seemed to take form in his eyes, giving them a stony, glazed appearance. It was as if a filmy curtain were drawn down across them, hiding everything within, mirroring only a swift-mounting terror.

"Ah?" de Grandin murmured thoughtfully. "Now we begin to make the progress." Abruptly he demanded:

"You knew Messieurs Eldridge, Trivers and Atkins?" He flung the words more like a challenging accusation than a query.

"Yes!"

"And they, too, thought they had sinned past redemption; they saw in suicide the last hope of escape; they were concerned with you in this iniquity?"