"Don't you see what I mean, doctor?" asked Samuel.
"Yes," was the reply, "I see."
"Well?" said Samuel.
"It would be no use to try it," said the doctor. "They would never do
it."
"They wouldn't?"
"No. Nothing in the world could make them do it."
"Not even if we threatened to denounce them?"
"No; not even then."
"Not even if we put them in jail?"
Dr. Vince made no reply. The other sat waiting. And then suddenly he
said in a low voice, "Doctor, I mean to MAKE them give it up. I see it
quite clearly now--that is my duty. They must give it up!"
Again there was silence.
"Dr. Vince," cried the boy in a voice of pain, "you surely mean to
help me!"
And suddenly the doctor shut his lips together tightly. "No, Samuel,"
he said. "I do not!"
The boy sat dumb. He felt a kind of faintness come over him. "You will
leave me all alone?" he said in a weak voice.
The other made no reply.
"Am I not right?" cried the boy wildly. "Have I not spoken the truth?"
"I don't know," the doctor answered. "It is too hard a question for me
to answer. I only know that I do not feel such things to be in my
province; and I will not have anything to do with them."
"But, doctor, you are the representative of the church!"
"Yes. And I must attend to the affairs of the church."
"But is it no affair of the church that the people are being robbed?"
There was no reply.
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