"I could not help it. I tried—"
"I believe you tried; and for a time you did help it."
"I know it displeases you," she said. "I did not want to do so before you."
"It is not because it displeases me, that I want you not to do it; but because it is not right."
"Why not right?" she asked somewhat defiantly.
"Because it is not right for any one ever to lose command of himself."
Rotha seemed to prick up her ears at that, as if the idea were new, but she said nothing.
"You will ask me again perhaps why? Rotha, if you lose command of yourself, who takes it?"
Rotha's eye carried a startled inquiry now. "I suppose—nobody," she said.
"Do you think we have such an enemy as we have, and that he will let such an advantage go unimproved? No; when you lose command of yourself Satan takes it,—and uses it."