"Gawd holds you responsible for Seraphine's sin. You set de pattern and Seraphine followed em. You is to blame."
Mary knew that Unex spoke the truth.
"Wha' you gwine to do, Si May-e?"
She lay speechless.
"Prayin is all de hope you got so pray widout ceastin until dem stripes come clean and you soul gets white as snow."
The grave melted, Unex was gone. Mary and the bloody white cloth were left alone.
Voices called to her all through the long night, but she did not answer them. She could not as long as that cloth lay there striped with Jesus' blood.
The voice in her heart no longer prayed quietly, it groaned and screamed and cried, nour after hour, begging Jesus to take away all those stripes. In her misery she rolled over and over on the ground, her fists beat on her head and breast, but the stripes stayed pure scarlet.
She must try some other plan or she would die unforgiven.
Maybe if she took them one sin at a time, that would help. She began with Unex, her first scarlet sin and prayed for it until that stripe slowly faded and was finally gone.
