She found him awake, and troubled, though not with an eternal trouble such as hers.
"I thought I should find you asleep, Alister!" she said.
"It was not very likely, mother!" he answered gently.
"You too have been tried with terrible thoughts?"
"I have been tried, but hardly with terrible thoughts: I know that
Mercy loves me!"
"Ah, my son, my dear son! love itself is the terrible thing! It has drawn many a man from the way of peace!"
"Did it draw you and my father from the way of peace?" asked
Alister.
"Not for a moment!" she answered. "It made our steps firmer in the way."
"Then why should you fear it will draw me from it? I hope I have never made you think I was not following my father and you!"
"Who knows what either of us might have done, with such a temptation as yours!"