"I have the welfare of our Dame d'Héronac very strongly at heart, Monsieur, as you can guess, and I am not altogether sure that the cinders are not still red. It would be well for you to ascertain whether this be so or not before you ask her to make fresh bonds."
"You think she still cares for her husband, then?" Henry was very pale.
"I do not know that she ever cared—but I do know that even his memory has power to disturb her. He must have been just such another as your friend, the Seigneur of Arranstoun. It is his presence which has reminded her of something of the past, since it cannot be he himself."
"No, of course it cannot be Michael—" and Henry laughed shortly. "He is an Englishman. She had never seen him before yesterday—You think she seems disturbed?"
"Yes."
"What would you have me do, then, Father? I love this woman more than my life and only desire her happiness."
The Curé of Héronac shrugged his high shoulders slightly.
"It is not for me to give advice to a man of the world—but had it been in the days when I was Gaston d'Héronac, of the Imperial Guard, I should have told you—Use your intelligence, search, investigate for yourself. Make her love you—leave nothing vague or to chance. As a priest, I must say that I find all divorces wrong—and that for me she should remain the wife of the other man."
"Even when the man is a drunkard or a lunatic, and there have been no children?" Henry demanded.
A strange look came in the old Curé's eye as he glanced at his companion covertly, and for a second it seemed as though he meant to speak his thought—but the only words which came were in Latin: