She made no answer. The priest drew a little nearer to her, and his thin, ascetic face seemed suddenly ablaze with scorn and anger.
"Child! your destiny is surely to bring sorrow upon all those who would watch over you, and shape your life aright. Where you have been living, and how, since your flight, I do not know. You have hidden yourself well! You have shown more than the ordinary selfishness of childhood! You have thought nothing of those who may have troubled for you! I do not ask for your confidence. This is enough for me: I find you here in his arms—his of all men in the world! False to your Church; false to your sex; false to your father's memory! Shameless!"
She did not flinch from before him. She looked him in the face, coldly and without fear.
"You are a priest, and you do not understand. Be so good as to remember that I am no longer now in your power or under your authority. You cannot threaten to make me a nun any longer. Remember that I am outside your life now, and outside your religion."
"You can be brought back," he said calmly. "I have powers."
"Powers which I defy. Your religion is a cold, dry farce, and I hate it. You cannot frighten me; you cannot alarm me in the least. You can do ugly things, I know, in the name of your Church; and if you had me back at the convent, or on that awful island, I should be frightened at you. Here, I am not."
Instinctively she glanced toward Paul. Already in her thoughts, he was assuming the protector. He would not suffer harm to come to her. He was strong and rich and powerful. The horror of days gone by had already grown faint with her; it was little more than memory. It was gone, and could not come again.
"I have not come here to talk with you, child," he answered quietly. "My errand has been with Madame de Merteuill, and it is accomplished, I go now. Paul de Vaux, our ways lie together for a mile or more, and I have a word to say to you. Let us go."
Paul was slowly recovering from a state of mental stupor, and, with his discovery, something of the glamour of his late intoxication was passing away. He had no regret, there was nothing which he would have recalled; but his eyes were stronger to pierce the mists, and he was able to bring the weight of impersonal thought to bear upon all that had passed between Adrea and himself. Wheresoever it might lead, there was a tie between them now which could not be lightly severed.
"It is time I went," Paul answered. "Adrea, I will come and see you to-morrow."