"What can I do for you?" he asked.
"I would like...." faltered Sophy. "... If I might speak with Father Raphael of the Poor...?" she ended.
"I am Father Raphael," he said. He had a beautiful, deep, tranquil voice. Sophy's mind was beginning to be confused. All sorts of fantasies whirled through it. She imagined that this voice indicated a tragedy far back in the priest's life. That he had suffered in some deeply human way. The church was dim. She could not see his face clearly, but his hair shone out almost white from the shadows. His eyebrows were thick and black.
"I am Father Raphael," he said again. "Will you come this way with me, my daughter?"
He thought her a Catholic, of course; but at the words, "my daughter," spoken in that lovely voice, it seemed to Sophy that a band snapped about her heart, releasing it. It was as if some benign, paternal angel had troubled the pool of tears, far down among the very roots of her being.
She followed him silently, and from her eyes there welled great, slow drops—hot and heavy, like drops of blood from the inmost core of her heart.
XIV
The room into which Father Raphael led her was very bare. There was a clock on the deal mantelpiece, some plain rush-seated deal chairs stained brown, a deal table covered with a cheap cloth stamped in red and black. On a little shrine in one corner stood a plaster statue of the Virgin as the Mater Misericordiæ, with her hands extended in compassion. A nosegay of white geraniums in a thick glass was placed before it.
The priest sat down on one side of the table, and motioned Sophy to a chair opposite. He waited, looking away from her out of the small window that framed a hideous "back yard," until she had somewhat mastered herself. Then he said in his tranquil, tender voice: