"His sufferings!" he interrupted. "Does suffering entitle a man to be
regarded as divine? If so, so also am I a God. Look at me!" He
stretched out his long, thin arms with their claw-like hands, thrusting
forward his great savage head that the bony, wizened throat seemed hardly
strong enough to bear. "Wealth, honour, happiness: I had them once. I
had wife, children and a home. Now I creep an outcast, keeping to the
shadows, and the children in the street throw stones at me. Thirty years
I have starved that I might preach. They shut me in their prisons, they
hound me into garrets. They jibe at me and mock me, but they cannot
silence me. What of my life? Am I divine?"
Miss Ensor, having finished her supper, sat smoking.
"Why must you preach?" she asked. "It doesn't seem to pay you." There
was a curious smile about the girl's lips as she caught Joan's eye.
He turned to her with his last flicker of passion.
"Because to this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the
world, that I should bear witness unto the truth," he answered.
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