"Surely the true Christianity," pleaded his wife more gently, "is that which knows all and pardons all; the love that can remember—and forget."
"Father Brown," said young Mallow, very earnestly, "I generally agree with what you say; but I'm hanged if I can follow you here. A shot in a duel, followed instantly by remorse, is not such an awful offence."
"I admit." said Father Brown dully, "that I take a more serious view of his offence."
"God soften your hard heart," said the strange lady speaking for the first time. "I am going to speak to my old friend."
Almost as if her voice had raised a ghost in that great grey house, something stirred within and a figure stood in the dark doorway at the top of the great stone flight of steps. It was clad in dead black, but there was something wild about the blanched hair and something in the pale features that was like the wreck of a marble statue.
Viola Grayson began calmly to move up the great flight of steps; and Outram muttered in his thick black moustache: "He won't cut her dead as he did my wife, I fancy."
Father Brown, who seemed in a collapse of resignation, looked up at him for a moment.
"Poor Marne has enough on his conscience," he said. "Let us acquit him of what we can. At least he never cut your wife."
"What do you mean by that?"
"He never knew her," said Father Brown.