Amos understood Levis. He had watched Ellen since she was a baby; he had seen her growing toward womanhood and he believed that he loved only her soul.
"What are you going to do about Ellen?" he asked.
It seemed for a moment that Levis meant to brush by him without answering. Then he said to himself that it was just as well to let Grandfather and this saintly young whipper-snapper have their just deserts together and at once.
"Ellen will come no more to meeting. You have had your chance at her now during all her most impressionable years, for which I blame myself. I should have broken my promise long before you broke yours."
"God Almighty will require her soul of you!" Grandfather's calmness vanished, he spoke with gathering power and shrillness. "You came here a stranger, you beguiled my daughter, she married you against my will and against her conscience, but she saw very soon that there was no joy in such a marriage. She gave me her children as a holy gift, and if I died without knowing they were safe, I couldn't be happy in eternity!"
"They're my children as well as hers," answered Levis. "I have just as keen a sense of responsibility as you. You've had more than your share of their souls. You've taught them superstition, now I'll teach them the truth."
"Superstition!" Grandfather made a sweeping gesture in the direction of the dim old buildings. "What do you believe, Edward?"
"I believe in an undefinable creative power," answered Levis sharply. "As for revelation or miracles or immortality or divinity come to earth--they are delusions created by the imagination of men as panaceas for the fear of death."
The old man clasped his hands, anger transmuted into terror.
"Immortality!" he repeated. "You don't doubt immortality?"
"I think we shall be immortal as part of the revolving earth."
"Will you tell Ellen that?" asked Grandfather in a whisper.
"No," said Levis. "If Ellen has as good a mind as I think she has, she will find all that out for herself. Good-night."
"We will pray for them and you," said he.
"I have no objections," answered Levis. "Pray away!"
When the door was shut, Amos saw that Grandfather was weeping.
"Don't worry, Uncle," said he. "Matthew is safe. I'm confident of it. And Ellen will come to school for two more years. She will not forget."