"If you have such power, why am I not vanquished?"
"Have you not been vanquished many times?"
"Not once!" cried Romanoff. "Little by little I have been enveloping him in my toils."
"Think," replied the other. "When he was tossing on the angry sea, whose arms bore him up? Think again, why was it when you and he were in the library together at Wendover, and you tempted him to sell his soul for gain;—whose hand was placed on his, and stopped him from signing the paper which would have made him your slave?"
"Was it you?" gasped Romanoff.
"Think again. When the woman you selected sought to dazzle him with wild dreams of power and ambition, and who almost blinded him to the truth, what led him to discard the picture that came to him as inventions of evil? Who helped to open his eyes?"
"Then you—you," gasped Romanoff—"you have been fighting against me all the time! It was you, was it?"
"I was his mother, I am his mother; and I, who never intentionally did you harm, plead with you again. I love him, even as all true mothers, whether on earth or in the land of spirits, love their children. And I am allowed to watch over him, to protect him, to help him. It is my joy to be his guardian angel, and I plead with you to let him be free from your designs."
"And if I will—what reward will you give me?"
"I will seek to help you from your doom—the doom which must be the lot of those who persist in evil."