"H'm,—from the way you talked last night, I took it that the matter was settled. You said then that you could no longer—h'm—love him."
"I can't!—I mustn't! Don't you see? He's proved himself weak. How, then, can I keep on loving him? But they—they infer that it is my fault. I believe they think I tempted him."
"How's that?"
"Because I urged him to take the communion with me. I told you what he himself said about alcohol. But he did not blame me. He pointed out that if he was too weak to resist then, he would have yielded to the next temptation."
"H'm,—no doubt. Yet I've been considering that point—the fact that you did force him against his will."
"Surely, papa, you cannot say it was my fault, when he himself admits that his own weakness—"
"Wait," broke in her father. "What do you know about the curse of drink? It's possible that he might be able to resist the craving if not roused by the taste."
"Yet if he is so weak that a few drops of the holy communion wine could cause him to give way so shamelessly—"
"Holy?—h'm!" commented Mr. Leslie. "Alcohol is a poison. Suppose the Church used a decoction containing arsenic. Would that make arsenic holy?"
"Oh, papa! But it's so very different!"