“By what means were you able to obtain such a promise from him?” asked Wesley.
She was silent for some time—silent and ill at ease. At last she said slowly:
“I fear that I was guilty of double dealing again. I believe he went away with the impression that I would think with favour of him.”
“I fear that you meant to convey such an impression to him, Nelly.”
“I cannot deny it sir. I admit it. But I got rid of him. Oh, if you knew how he persecuted me you would not be hard on me.”
“My poor child, who am I that I should condemn you? I do not say that you were not wrong to deceive him as you did; the fact that your own conscience tells you that you were wrong proves that you were.”
“I do not desire to defend myself, sir; and perhaps it was also wrong for me to think as I have been thinking during the past week or two that just as it is counted an honourable thing for a general in battle to hoodwink his enemy, so it may not be quite fair to a woman to call her double dealing for using the wits that she has for her own protection. Were we endowed with wits for no purpose, do you think, Mr. Wesley?”
Mr. Wesley, the preacher of austerity, settled his countenance—not without difficulty—while he kept his eyes fixed upon the pretty face that looked up innocently to his own. He shook his head and raised a finger of reproof. He began to speak with gravity, his intention being to assure her of the danger there was trying to argue against the dictates of one's conscience. If cunning was the gift of Nature, Conscience was the gift of God—that was in his mind when he began to speak.
“Child,” he began, “you are in peril; you
“A woman,” she cried. “I am a woman, and I know that there are some—they are all men—who assert that to be a woman is to be incapable of understanding an argument—so that——”