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The Keeper of the Bees

about trying the same way, oh, I wish that the good God could show them the two dead faces that I have seen so lately, dead in their youth, dead in their beauty, gone out of life, gone out of love! Those children cannot face the Master and answer anything but “Guilty,” and all the rest of life for me I must bear the burden of their sin. I am right when I say that with bowed head for the rest of my days I must walk softly. Go home and leave me, Jamie. This is a thing I have to fight out alone.”

Jamie took the stricken woman in his arms and kissed her and left her. There was nothing else he could do. What she had said was true. There was no controverting it. There was no way to get around it. There were no consoling words that he could speak. But he made up his mind that with the young folks with whom he came in contact he would try to use all the influence he might have on the side of God’s laws, of man’s laws, of the natural laws of physical cleanliness and decency.