If I could see a
chance of God being half as good to me as my poor wife. She was my
wife! I will say it in spite of all the priests in the stupid
universe! She was my wife, and deserved to be my wife; and if I had
her now, I would marry her, because she would be foolish enough to
like it, though I would not do it all the time she was alive, let
her beg ever so! Where was the use of giving in, when I kept her in
hand so easily that way? That was it! It was not that I wanted to do
her any wrong. But you should keep the lead. A man mustn't play out
his last trump and lose the lead. But then you never know about
dying! If I had known my poor wife was going to die, I would have
done whatever she wanted. We had merry times together! It was those
cursed drugs that wiled the soul out of me, and then the devil went
in and took its place!--There was curara in that last medicine, I'll
swear!--Look you here now, Grant:--if there were any way of
persuading God to give me a fresh lease of life! You say he hears
prayer: why shouldn't you ask him? I would make you any promise you
pleased--give you any security you wanted, hereafter to live a
godly, righteous, and sober life."
"But," said Donal, "suppose God, reading your heart, saw that you
would go on as bad as ever, and that to leave you any longer would
only be to make it the more difficult for him to do anything with
you afterwards?"
"He might give me a chance! It is hard to expect a poor fellow to be
as good as he is himself!"
"The poor fellow was made in his image!" suggested Donal.
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