And Mr Tremayne left the room with a bow, very well knowing that as soon as the first point was satisfactorily settled, the second would be left quiescent.
Mrs Tremayne had never opened her lips; and leaving her in the study, Blanche wandered into the parlour, where Clare and Lysken were seated at work.
“I marvel what Master Tremayne would have!” said Blanche, sitting down in the window, and idly pulling the dead leaves from the plant which stood there. “He saith ’tis our own fault that we will not to be saved, and yet in the self breath he addeth that the will so to be must needs be given us of God.”
Lysken looked up.
“Methinks we are all willing enow to be saved from punishment,” she said. “What we be unwilling to be saved from is sin.”
“‘Sin’—alway sin!” muttered Blanche. “Ye be both of a story. Sin is wickedness. I am not wicked.”
“Sin is the disobeying of God,” replied Lysken. “And saving thy presence, Blanche, thou art wicked.”
“Then so art thou!” retorted Blanche.
“So I am,” said Lysken. “But I am willing to be saved therefrom.”
“Prithee, Mistress Elizabeth Barnevelt, from what sin am I not willing to be saved?”