“But that can’t be the Catholic doctrine!” Will exclaimed with great vehemence.
Florian was more practical. “I dare say not,” he answered, with a shrug—“as the Catholic doctrine is understood by theologians, archbishops, and casuistical text-books. But that’s nothing to the point. It is the Catholic doctrine as these women understand it, and it’s sufficient to make them both supremely unhappy. That’s enough for us. What we’ve got to ask is, how can we help them now out of this hole they’ve got into?”
The longer they talked about it, indeed, the clearer did this central fact come out to them. Philippina had married in haste, without the Church’s consent; she was repenting at leisure now, in the effort to obtain it. And she sat there, cowering and quivering in bodily terror of those pains and penalties of fire and flame which were every whit as real to her to-day in London as they had been long ago by the wayside shrines at St Valentin. Either she must give up her husband, she said, or her hopes of salvation. It was evident that to her mind the little peccadilloes which the Church could absolve were as absolutely nothing; but to live with the husband whom the Church disowned, appalled and alarmed her. Her agonised terror was as genuine as though the danger she feared were actually confronting her. She saw and heard the hissing flames of purgatory. It made Will realise far more keenly than he had ever realised before the deep hold their creed keeps over these Tyrolese women. He couldn’t help thinking how much Linnet would suffer, with her finer mould, and her profounder emotions, under similar circumstances, if even Philippina, that buxom, coarse-fibred girl, took so deeply to heart the Church’s displeasure. He remembered it afterwards at a great crisis of their history; it was one of the events in life that most profoundly affected him.
Philippina, meanwhile, rocked herself up and down, moaning and trembling piteously. Will’s heart was touched. He seized his friend by the arm. “Look here, Florian,” he cried, all sympathy, “we must go at once and see the Archbishop.”
“My dear fellow,” Florian answered, shaking his head, “it isn’t the slightest use. I’ve tried too long. The man’s pure priest. Heart or pity he has none. The bowels of compassion have been all trained out of him. The simplest offence against ecclesiastical law is to him sheer heresy.”
“Never mind,” Will answered. “We can always try.” It struck him, in fact, that the Archbishop might perhaps be more easily moved by himself than by Florian. “Philippina must go with us. We’ll see whether or not we can move the Churchman.”
They drove off together in a cab to Westminster; but Linnet went back by herself to St John’s Wood.
When she reached her home, Andreas met her at the door with a little sneer on his face. Though they lived more simply than ever prima donna lived before, his avarice grew more marked as Linnet’s earnings increased; and since Philippina’s marriage he had been unkinder than ever to her. “What did you want with a cab?” he asked, “wasting your money like that. Wherever you’ve been—without my knowledge or consent—you might at least have come home by the Underground, I should fancy.”
Linnet’s face flushed hot. In her anxiety for her friend’s soul, she had never thought of such trifles as the hire of a hansom. “It was for Philippina,” she said, reproachfully, with a good home thrust: and Andreas, wincing, imagined he could detect a faintly personal stress upon Philippina’s name which almost disconcerted him. “She came round here in such a terrible state of distress that I couldn’t help going with her. She can’t get her absolution; she’s almost out of her mind with it.”
Andreas’ face set harder and sterner than ever. He eyed his wife narrowly. “Philippina can settle for her own cabs,” he said with an ugly frown. “What’s Philippina to us or we to Philippina, that we should waste our hard-earned money upon her? Let Philippina pay for the saving of her own precious soul, if she wants to save it. Don’t spend a penny upon her that belongs to your husband.”