“And yet, my Lord, what possible benefit can accrue to myself from this ungracious task? With all your ingenuity, what personal gain can result to me?”
“What care I for your motives, sir?” responded Norwood, fiercely. “I only know that you had never incurred so critical a hazard without an object. You either seek to exert a menace over me, or to be revenged on her.”
“Alas, my Lord, I see how little hope I should have of vindicating myself before you. Your estimate of the Papists suggests nothing above craft and dishonesty. You will not believe that human affections, love of country, and all the other associations of a home, are strong in hearts that beat beneath the serge frock of the priest. Still less do you know the great working principle of our Faith,—the law which binds us, for every unjust act we have done in life, to make an expiation in this world. For many a year has my conscience been burdened with this offence. But for my weak compliance with your request, I should never have performed this ceremony. Had I been firm, you had been saved. Nay, in my eagerness to serve you, I only worked your ruin; for, on confessing to my Superior what I had done, he at once took measures to ratify the act of marriage, and my rank as a deacon took date from the day before the ceremony.” D'Esmonde seemed not to notice the gesture of indignation with which Norwood heard these words, but he went on: “It is, then, to make some requital for this wrong, that I now risk all that your anger may inflict upon me.”
“Where is this woman?” cried Norwood, savagely, and as if impatient at a vindication for which he felt no interest. “Where is she?”
“She is here, my Lord,” said the other, meekly.
“Here? How do you mean? Not in this house?”
“I mean that she is now in Florence.”
“What, living openly here?—calling herself by my name?”
“She lives in all the splendor of immense wealth, and as openly as the protection of Prince Midchekoff——”
“Midchekoff——Midchekoff, did you say?” cried Norwood, in a burst of passion.