As they carried on along and met more people Furlong did and did not know, he found himself asking was there any point in being alive without helping one another? Was it possible to carry on along through all the years, the decades, through an entire life, without once being brave enough to go against what was there and yet call yourself a Christian, and face yourself in the mirror? |  | -- |  | The worst was yet to come, he knew. Already he could feel a world of trouble wating for him behind the next door, but the worst that could have happened was also already behind him; the thing not done, which could have been - which he would have had to live with for the rest of his life. Whatever suffering he was not to meet was a long way from what the girl at his side had already endured, and might yet surpass. Climbing the street towards his own front door with the barefooted girl and the box of shoes, his fear more than outweighed every other feeling but in his foolish heart he not only hoped but legitimately believed that they would manage.