‘You don’t mean to tell me that you cared for me as much as all that?’ demanded Frederick, with a touch of the old vanity.
‘No!’ she answered, ‘no! I did not care for you as much as all that, and if I had done so, the time is past for telling you of it! Let me finish what I was going to say to you! Be warned by me! If you become a priest, you will regret it. You are not fitted by nature or constitution, for such an artificial life, neither is your present feeling a permanent one. I feel it! Something tells me so! Your mind has been upset, and you are not capable of judging for yourself! Don’t take the final step without further consideration. And tell me one thing! Do you know a man, not very tall but rather stout—with blue eyes and fair hair, parted down the middle—a man with a pleasant smile and manner, and who is especially natty about his hands and nails?’
‘Yes, yes!’ cried the young man; ‘what of him? I recognise your description perfectly.’
‘He is an enemy of yours, Fred!’ replied Rhoda. ‘I was told to tell you that he—’
‘Stop!’ cried Frederick, suddenly. ‘Who told you?’
‘Mother did, last night, or some of her controls. I told you, ages ago, you may remember, that she has the gift of second sight.’
‘A soothsayer—a woman with a familiar spirit—condemned alike of God and our holy Church!’ exclaimed her companion excitedly, ‘and you bring me warnings and admonitions from such a source! Away—silence! I will hear no more of it. I sin each moment that I listen. My poor friend, do you know the danger you run by giving heed to anything you may hear from such a source? You are playing with the devil—listening to his advice, delivering your soul into his hands. You must promise me never to have any dealings with such people again, or you will imperil your immortal soul.’
But Rhoda, though deeply attached to the man before her, was too sensible a woman not to have opinions of her own, and the courage to stick up for them, into the bargain.
‘Not have dealings with my own mother!’ she retorted; ‘what will you tell me next, I wonder! If you don’t choose to heed what I say to you, it’s no fault of mine, Fred, but I’ve done my duty in telling you what was told to me. And as for its being wrong, I don’t believe it. If my mother’s controls were evil spirits, why did they warn me against you before ever I came to London, and say that nothing but trouble would come of our intimacy? Why didn’t they tell me that life was short in this world, and I had better make the most of it whilst it lasted, instead? No! that was your teaching, not theirs; but you’d like to make out your principles the better of the two! You may not take my advice. I can’t help that, but don’t set up your own against it, for you’ll only anger me, and I came to see you from a pure wish to do you good.’
And with that, and a suspicious sound in her voice as if she could not trust herself to speak any more, Rhoda gathered up a little shawl she had carried over her arm, and her umbrella, and prepared to quit the room.