“But a soul with evil tendencies,” Ward began impatiently, “if one must meet you on your own ground—”
“Ha! my dear sir, those evil tendencies would be in the soiling memories, and my boy is free from them.”
“He went toward all that was soiling before. Surely you can’t pretend he may not take that direction again?”
“That,” returned the professor quickly, “is his to choose. If this lady can be with him now, he will choose right.”
“So!” cried Miss Elizabeth, “you offer her the role of a guide, do you? First she is to be his companion through a trial for bigamy in a French court, and, if he is acquitted, his nurse, teacher, and moral preceptor?” She turned swiftly to her cousin. “That’s YOUR conception of a woman’s mission?”
“I haven’t any mission,” Mrs. Harman answered quietly. “I’ve never thought about missions; I only know I belong to him; that’s all I EVER thought about it. I don’t pretend to explain it, or make it seem reasonable. And when I met him again, here, it was—it was—it was proved to me.”
“Proved?” echoed Miss Elizabeth incredulously.
“Yes; proved as certainly as the sun shining proves that it’s day.”
“Will you tell us?”
It was I who asked the question: I spoke involuntarily, but she did not seem to think it strange that I should ask.