‘Tell me,’ he urged, ‘tell me everything! Don’t think, because I’m going to be a priest, that I have lost all trace of human feeling. Is the child alive and well? Is it a boy or a girl?’ ‘What is the good of my telling you?’ asked Rhoda, dashing away the tears that had risen to her eyes. ‘You’ll never see him, nor will he call you “father.” But since you ask me, he is a boy, and strong and healthy, and I love him dearly. Is that sufficient?’ ‘My little son,’ said Frederick, musingly. ‘The only child I shall ever have, and him I have disgraced, God forgive me! Rhoda, you must let me settle some money on this boy before my fortune passes out of my hands. He is mine; you have no right to refuse me.’ ‘No, no, I will not have it; he shall not take it!’ exclaimed Rhoda, passionately. ‘Mother and I have enough for him, and he shall never know who his father is. Don’t be afraid but that he will be well looked after. He is all--all--’ with a sudden break in her voice--‘that I have left.’ In a moment the injury he had done this girl, whose existence he had almost forgotten, flashed across Frederick Walcheren’s mind. ‘Oh! let me make you some amends,’ he cried. ‘Don’t leave me with this remorse tearing at my heart. If you do, the child and you will come between me and my prayers. The money is my own still, to do as I will with. Let me put a thousand pounds in the bank--only a thousand pounds, Rhoda--in your name, that you may have something to fit the boy out with when he is of an age to enter the world.’ But she shook her head. ‘I will not take your money,’ she said. ‘I will not be paid for my love.’ ‘Then what can I do for you?’ he cried, in a voice of despair. ‘How can I show you how sorry I am for the past--how much I would do to repair it?’ ‘If you wish to make me happier,’ she answered, turning so as to face him, ‘_don’t become a priest_. Give up this mad idea. You will regret it bitterly if you do not. Ah, Fred,’ she continued, drawing closer to him, ‘I don’t ask--I don’t wish to be anything to you ever again, but come back to the world and live in it a little longer before you take a step you can never recall. I do not expect, nor ask to receive, your love. I know that has gone from me to the girl you made your wife, but if I can comfort you by my friendship and my devotion, it will be yours to your life’s end. Come back and let me try and comfort you for all you have lost. I will be your servant and your friend, and nothing more, so long as I can smooth your path in life. Dear, dear Fred, you know I loved you! Let us go away to some distant land together till your grief is assuaged and your mind is more fit to decide upon your future plans.’ She laid her hand affectionately upon his arm as she spoke, but he flung it from him as if it had been a serpent.