"I have disgraced my faith."
"Nonsense, you are an ornament to any faith."
"Do not say that!" She spoke with despairing vehemence. "You don't realize how grotesque it sounds. If what you say were true I should not be here."
He drew himself up. There was a resentful note in his tone. "I did not suppose myself such a moral leper that it would be unsafe for any one to talk to me. Other Catholics--and good ones--talk to me, and apparently without contamination."
"It is only that I have no right to. Now you are going to be angry with me."
He saw her eyes quiver. "God forbid! I misunderstood. And you are sensitive, dearest."
"I am sensitive," she said reluctantly. "More than ever, perhaps, since I have ceased practising my religion."
"But why have you ceased?"
Her words came unwillingly. "I could not help it."
"Why could you not help it?"