Michael Malone - Weebly

taken from the nuns' teaching the outmoded idea that
the purpose of punishment is to redeem the offender's
soul through the cleansing of penance. She did not think
of punishment either as unnecessary or as a salve or
recompense to the victim. Consequently, to murder a
murderer was not in her philosophy, whether the
murdered were Limus Barnum or Maynard Henry. Yet
at the heart of her protection of Maynard Henry lay not
merely her Christian condemnation of retaliatory justice
(as Abernathy surmised), not merely her fear that
prejudice would falsely punish Henry if he were brought
to trial (as Abernathy surmised). At the heart lay her
knowledge that she could not disconnect herself from
Maynard Henry.
Outside, trailed by stars, the moon floated by.
Mother moon and all her bright pretty children, the nuns
had said. And Judith had prayed to the moon for her
own mother to return and claim her as her own. Now
she looked at her watch, then pulled herself on her side
and reached for the telephone. Winslow Abernathy's
number was one she was easily able to remember,
though she had never dialed it but once, for Dingley