But alas she must make known a distressful occurrence, whereby
the office of a spiritual adviser by the bedside of Maximus must
needs be complicated and made painful; and therewith Petronilla
related the events of yesterday. As he listened, the deacon knitted
his brows, but in thought rather than in affliction; and when the
speaker was silent, he still mused awhile.
'Gracious madam,' he began at length solemnly, 'you of course hold
no intercourse with this lady?'
'None! I have shrunk ever from the sight of her.'
'Such abhorrence of error witnesses to the purity and the
illumination of your soul: I could have expected nothing less from
Petronilla. You know not whether the misguided woman shows any
disposition to return to the true faith?'
'I fear not,' replied Petronilla, looking rather as if the fear were
a hope. 'Her nature is stubborn: she has the pride of the fallen
angels.'
'And her father, I am afraid, has no longer the strength to treat
her sin with due severity?'
'Earthly affection has subdued him,' replied the lady, shaking her
head. 'Who knows,' she added, 'how far his weakness may lead my poor
brother?'
She glanced about the hall, and Leander perfectly understood what
was in her mind.
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