"What difference would that make?"
"A Christian could not contract marriage with a pagan--such a union would be null."
"Would a good Catholic enter into such a union?"
"No."
Kimberly shook his head. "Then she would not. If she had been a disgrace to her religion she might have done it. If she had been a woman of less character, less intelligence it might be. If she had been a worse Catholic," he concluded with a tinge of bitterness, "she might stand better now."
"Better perhaps, as to present difficulties; worse as to that character which you have just paid tribute to; which makes, in part, her charm as a woman--the charm of any good woman to a good man. You cannot have and not have. When you surrender character a great deal goes with it."
The archbishop's words sounded a knell to Kimberly's hopes, and his manner as he spoke reflected the passing of his momentary encouragement. "There is nothing then that you can do."
"If there be no defect--if this first marriage was a valid marriage--I am powerless in the circumstances. I can do nothing to allow her to remarry while her husband lives."
Kimberly arose. "We cannot, of course, kill him," he said quietly. "And I am sorry," he added, as if to close the interview, "not to be able to relieve her mind. I have made an effort to lay before you the truth and the merit of the case as far as she is concerned. I had hoped by being absolutely unreserved to invoke successfully something of that generosity which you find edifying in others; to find something of that mercy and tolerance which are always so commendable when your church is not called on to exercise them."
The archbishop, too, had risen. The two men faced each other. If the elder felt resentment, none was revealed in his manner or in his answer. "You said a few moments ago that you could not always do as you pleased," he began; "I, too, am one under authority." His fingers closed over the cross on his breast. "All generosity, all mercy, all tolerance that lie within His law, nothing could prevent my granting to you, and to less than you--to the least of those that could ask it. I know too much of the misery, the unhappiness of a woman's life and of the love she gives to man, to withhold anything within my power to alleviate her suffering.