For the moment her outraged feelings were forgotten. The man had fascinated her. To be told, in this authoritative manner, that she was wicked was a new and delightful experience. It brought back to her the real motive of her visit, which had in reality been inspired not only by the sermon of the day before, but by sheer curiosity.
“What would you have me do?” she demanded.
“Find yourself.”
“Do you mean to say that I am not—myself?” she asked, now completely bewildered.
“I mean to say that you are nobody until you achieve conviction.”
For Charlotte Plimpton, nee Gore, to be told in her own city, by the rector of her own church that she was nobody was an event hitherto inconceivable! It was perhaps as extraordinary that she did not resent. it. Curiosity still led her on.
“Conviction?” she repeated. “But I have conviction, Mr. Hodder. I believe in the doctrines of the Church.”
“Belief!” he exclaimed, and checked himself strongly. “Conviction through feeling. Not until then will you find what you were put in the world for.”
“But my husband—my children? I try to do my duty.”
“You must get a larger conception of it,” Hodder replied.