"You have good reason to know that you are telling a fact in asserting this?"
"Yes, altogether too good a reason." There was a return of bitterness in her answer.
Father Honoré was baffled. Aileen spoke without further questioning. Evidently she was desirous of making her position as well as Champney's plain to him and to herself. Her voice grew more gentle as she continued:—
"Father Honoré, I've loved him so long—and so truly, without hope, you know—never any hope, and hating myself for loving where I was not loved—that I think I do know what love is—"
Father Honoré smiled to himself in the half-dark; this voice was still young, and its love-wisdom was young-wise, also. There was hope, he told himself, that all would come right in the end—work together for good.
"But Mr. Googe never loved me as I loved him—and I couldn't accept less."
The priest caught but the lesser part of her meaning. Even his wisdom and years failed to throw light on the devious path of Aileen's thoughts at this moment. Of the truth contained in her expression, he had no inkling.
"Aileen, I don't know that I can make it plain to you, but—a man's love is so different from a woman's that, sometimes, I think such a statement as you have just made is so full of flaws that it amounts to sophistry; but there is no need to discuss that.—Let me ask you if you can endure to stay on with Mrs. Champney for a few months longer? I have a very special reason for asking this. Sometime I will tell you."
"Oh, yes;" she spoke wearily, indifferently; "I may as well stay there as anywhere now." Then with more interest and animation, "May I tell you something I have kept to myself all these years? I want to get rid of it."
"Surely—the more the better when the heart is burdened."