"Yes," she assented. "'The husband of one wife.'"
"If you begin to quote Scripture against me," Maurice retorted, laughing in spite of himself, "I might easily reply to St. Paul by St. Paul. But letting that pass, it is certainly true that the church has always held that marriage absorbs a man in earthly things so that he cannot give the best of his thoughts to his work."
"When the church sets itself against marriage," Mrs. Morison responded quietly, "it seems to me to be setting up to know more than the Creator of the race."
Maurice colored, although he might not have been able to tell whether his strongest feeling was horror at this bold language or joy at the emphasis with which she spoke.
"Perhaps I should beg your pardon for saying so frankly what I think," Mrs. Morison continued. "It isn't the way in which one generally talks to a clergyman; but the subject is one for which I haven't much patience, and of course I couldn't help seeing that you are in doubt yourself."
Maurice started.
"What do you mean?" he stammered. "I—I in doubt?"
"I hadn't any intention of forcing your confidence," returned she. "I am an old woman, and sometimes I find that I don't make allowance enough for the slowness of you young people in arriving at a knowledge of self."
He cast down his eyes.
"Until this moment," he said, "I have never acknowledged to myself that I was in doubt. I see what you mean, and it shows that I have been playing with fire."