"She has never known?"
The bishop shook his head. "She believes he died before her mother left Japan." He paused before the window, his back to the other. "He was my friend!" he said; "and I loved him. I gave my sister to him, and she loved him, too!"
"I remember," said the archbishop slowly. "She went back to America from Nagasaki. How strange it was! She never told any one why she left him?"
"Never a word. She died before I went to America again. She left me a letter which hinted at something wholly unforgivable—almost Satanic, it must have seemed to her."
"And he?"
"Disappeared. He was thought to have gone to China. Perhaps he is alive there yet. I have always wondered. If so, how is he living—in what way?" The bishop turned abruptly. "In view of what we know, can I lend myself to the dedication of this house of our Lord to a memory that may be infamous? I ask you as a friend."
The older man was a long time silent.
"'His ways are past finding out,'" he said at length. "I am conscious, sometimes, of a hidden purpose in things. The daughter's memory of her father is a beautiful thing. Let us not destroy it!"