"I must go!" he said quietly. "Farewell!"
I could scarcely believe that he meant it; that he was going away without another word, at what was really this priest's unspoken bidding. But it was so. From that moment, the fear of Father Adrian which had grown up in my heart leaped into a new strength. I was angry, and full of resistance.
"Why should you go?" I cried. "I have much to say to you!"
"I must go now, Adrea," he answered simply. "When I came I had no thought of staying. It is late!"
I felt my face grow hot with passion as I turned swiftly round towards Father Adrian. "It is you who should go," I cried. "Why have you come here? Why are you always creeping across my life like a dark, noisome shadow? Go away! Begone! I will not be left with you!"
He turned a shade paler, but he did not sacrifice his dignity, as I hoped that he would, by answering me with anger. He did not even answer me at all. He looked over my head at my lover.
"To-morrow night!" he said calmly.
"To-morrow night!" Paul answered.
I stood between them, angry but helpless. A log of wood had just fallen from the fire on to the hearth, and in its sudden blaze I could see their faces distinctly. The utter contrast between the two men threw each into strong relief. Paul, in his scarlet coat and riding clothes, pale and impassive, but débonnaire; and Father Adrian, his strange black garb mud-bespattered and disordered, and his dark, angry face livid with the passion so hardly suppressed. It was odd to think of them as creatures of the same species. Odder still to think that there should be this link between them.