"No one knows I called the mother by that name!"
"My Visitor told me that Hagar had stolen away your first gift."
"It's Him. You've seen Him, too."
"To me he comes as - not an overseer. More like a scientist - a man of unguessable wisdom. Because I am a scientist, I imagine, besides my vocation as a minister. I have always supposed that He was a mere angel - listen to me, a mere angel - because I dared not hope that He was - was the Master himself. But now what you tell me - could it be that we have both entertained the presence of our Lord? Oh, Cavil, how can I doubt it? Why else would the Lord have brought us together like this? It means that I - that I'm forgiven."
"Forgiven?"
At Cavil's question, Thrower's face darkened.
Cavil hastened to reassure him. "No, you don't need to tell me if you don't want."
"I - it is almost unbearable to think of it. But now that I am clearly deemed acceptable - or at least, now that I've been given another chance - Brother Cavil, once I was given a mission to perform, one as dark and difficult and secret as your own. Except that where you have had the courage and strength to prevail, I failed. I tried, but I had not wit or vigor enough to overcome the power of the devil. I thought I was rejected, cast off. That's why I became a traveling preacher, for I felt myself unworthy to take a pulpit of my own. But now - "
Cavil nodded, holding the man's hands as tears flowed down his cheek.
At last Thrower looked up at him. "How do you suppose our Friend meant me to help you in your work?"
"I can't say," said Cavil. "But there's only one way I can think of, offhand."
"Brother Cavil, I'm not sure if I can take upon myself that loathsome duty."
"In my experience, the Lord strengthens a man, and makes it bearable."
"But in my case, Brother Cavil - you see, I've never known a woman, as the Bible speaks of it. Only once have my lips touched a woman's, and that was against my will."
"Then I'll do my best to help you. How if we pray together good and long, and then I show you once?"
Well, that seemed like the best idea either of them could think of right offhand, and so they did it, and it turned out Reverend Thrower was a quick learner. Cavil felt a great sense of relief to have someone else join in, not to mention a kind of peculiar pleasure at having somebody watch him and then watching the other fellow in turn. It was a powerful sort of brotherhood, to have their seed mingled in the same vessel, so to speak. Like Reverend Thrower said, "When this field comes to harvest, Brother Cavil, we shall not guess whose seed came unto ripeness, for the Lord gave us this field together, for this time."
Oh, and then Reverend Thrower asked the girl's name. "Well, we baptized her as 'Hepzibah,' but she goes by the name 'Roach.'"
"Roach!"
"They all take animal names. I reckon she doesn't have too high an opinion of herself."
At that, Thrower just reached over and took Roach's hand and patted it, as kindly a gesture as if Thrower and Roach was man and wife, an idea that made Cavil almost laugh right out. "Now, Hepzibah, you must use your Christian name," said Thrower, "and not such a debasing animal name."
Roach just looked at him wide-eyed, lying there curled up on the mattress.
"Why doesn't she answer me, Brother Cavil?"
"Oh, they never talk during this. I beat that out of them early - they always tried to talk me out of doing it. I figure better to have no words than have them say what the devil wants me to hear."
Thrower turned back to the woman. "But now I ask you to speak to me, Roach. You won't say devil words, will you?"
In answer, Roach's eyes wandered upward to where part of a bedsheet was still knotted around a rafter. It had been raggedly hacked off below the knot.
Thrower's face got kind of sick-looking. "You mean this is the room where - the girl we buried - "
"This room has the best bed," said Cavil. "I didn't want us doing this on a straw pallet if we didn't have to."
Thrower said