"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!"
"Either you say, mother, that my father was not so good as I think him, or that he did what he did in his own strength!"
"' Let him that thinketh '—you know the rest!" rejoined the mother.
"I don't think I am tempted to anything just now."
"There it is, you see!—the temptation so subtle that you do not suspect its character!"
"I am confident my father would have done just as I mean to do!"