power to undo. I ask you now to relinquish your control of her conscience and judgment, and to refuse to carry her farther with you in a course which can only lead her into deep sorrow and great humiliation."
The Reverend Mr. Farrar did not at once reply. A phase of the situation had been presented to him which had not before crossed his mind. He had met, and had solved to his own satisfaction, every problem in the controversy which he could foresee. This one was entirely new. But his clear vision and quick judgment went at once to the heart of it.
"I have used no persuasion on Miss Tracy," he said at last. "Her absorption in this crusade has been entirely due to her own innate sense of righteousness and of social justice. For me to seek now to dissuade her from any continuance in this work would be to shake her faith, and to discredit my own sincerity of purpose. I cannot do what you ask."
Westgate was annoyed. For the first time in all this unhappy controversy he felt that forbearance was no longer a virtue.
"Then you insist," he said, "in making selfish use of her to advance your own peculiar propaganda, regardless of her happiness, or her mother's peace of mind, or of my rights as her affianced lover?"
"I insist on giving her free rein, so far as I am concerned, to work out the impulses of a noble mind and heart. She has high ideals. I shall assist her, so far as I am able, to attain them."
"Even though in doing so you blast her happiness and wreck her life?"
"That is an absurd and irreligious supposition, Westgate. I repeat that I shall make no attempt to dissuade her from carrying out her high purpose, and you, even as her affianced lover, have no right to ask it."
"I do not ask it any longer, I demand it. I demand that you, as an honest man, and as a minister of God, unseal that woman's eyes that she may see."
