“What do you mean?” asked the young man curtly.
“I mean,” continued M. des Graves, and his voice was cold, “that I believe your own hardness of heart to have been the cause of your lukewarmness all these years. I mean that you cannot now make your submission to the Church because submission is a mere name to you. Only once in your life have you known what it is to surrender your own wishes; you have never known what it is to take the second place—except for your own convenience or when you had no choice.”
The Marquis settled himself again in his chair, an almost amused expression playing about his mouth, but when he spoke his voice sounded a long way off.
“You are fluent to-night, mon père,” he said. “Pray go on! Will you not illustrate my hardness of heart, my—what am I to call it?—my overbearing nature?”
“Yes,” returned the priest; “since you ask I will illustrate it. The girl whom you intend to make your wife loves and is loved in turn by another man. You——”
Gilbert started angrily from his chair. “Great Heavens!” he cried, “you presume too much! How do you know this? It is false—I tell you that it is a lie!”
M. des Graves had risen also. “My son,” he said, “sit down. It is not false. You shall hear me to the end, and you shall not ask me how I know what I know.”
A very definite majesty hung about the priest as he stood with one hand raised in expostulation. No one could have guessed that the tumult in his mind almost equalled that of Gilbert’s. They stood thus for several seconds, measuring swords against each other, till at last, when the tension began to get unbearable, the Marquis suddenly sat down.
“Go on,” he said harshly; “I will hear you to the end.”
M. des Graves walked over to the fire, turned, and began to speak. “I am in possession of certain facts, which you know to be true. I do not speak idly. I am not accustomed to play with words, nor is my information derived dishonourably. You know that Lucienne loves Louis; you know also that long ago they agreed to see no more of each other. You have taken no account of the suffering that went to that resolution. You intend to marry that unhappy lady with the consent of her will but not of her heart. You have been wronged in thought, I grant you; you are within your rights, I grant you—but have you no chivalry, have you no pity? Do you really mean to wreck two lives, and your own also—for nothing but misery and disillusionment can come of such a union?”