His happiness should not be torn from him without a desperate fight.
The priest's voice was very sad as he answered:
"That is so. She will, no doubt, be ready to marry you whenever you ask it is for you to demand of yourself whether you will accept her sacrifice."
"Sacrifice! I would never dream of any sacrifice. It is unthinkable, Father!"
Anguish now distraught Henry's soul; he stopped in his walk and looked full at the priest, his fine, distinguished face working with suffering. The Père Anselme thought to himself that he would have done very well for the model of a martyr of old. It distressed him deeply to see his pain and to know that there would be more to come.
"Her happiness is all that I care for—surely you know this—but what has caused this change? Has she seen her husband again?—I——" Here Henry stopped, a sense of stupefaction set in. What could it all mean?
"We have never spoken upon the matter," the priest answered him. "I cannot say, but I think—yes, she has certainly come under his influence again. Have you never searched in your mind, Monsieur, to ask yourself who this husband could be?"
"No—! How should I have done so? I have never been in America in my life." And then Henry's haggard eyes caught a look in the old priest's face. "My God!" he cried, agony in his voice, "you would suggest that it is some one I may know!"
"I suggest nothing, Monsieur. I make my own deductions from events. Will you not do the same?"
Henry covered his eyes with his hands. It seemed as though reason were slipping from him; and then, like a flash of lightning which cleared his brain, the reality struck him.