He could not answer it. The problem became more embarrassing every hour, and when lunch was done, and they were out on the parade together, it began to seem beyond his wit altogether. Not for a kingdom would he have brought tears to those bright eyes again. How prettily she babbled at his side; how quick, how clever, how beautiful she was! A pride of possession prevailed above all prudence, and drove him far from considered resolutions. He was content to go, hand in hand with her—God knew whither!
In the end, it all came back to the priest. Let them see the priest! He knew but one priest in Brighton, and that was the excellent Father Healy, with whom he had fraternised at his club. Divine inspiration. Let them call upon him.
VI
Father Maurice Healy lived up at the back of the town in an old windmill, skilfully transformed and built about so that it had become a veritable bungalow, with more than one pleasant room and a little chapel which his lady friends declared was too divine for words. He had been smoking his afternoon cigar, when the amazing pair burst in upon him, and never in all his life had he laid down good tobacco to listen to a tale so wonderful!
"Ye'll have to wait," he said dryly. "I've no power to marry ye at all as the State understands the term. Ye'll get a special licence, and then come to me. 'Tis wise advice, my dear, that ye should go back to your friends in London until things can be put straight. Make up your mind to that. I'm no better off in securing you to legal marriage than any man ye may stop in the street. Mr. Lassett knows that well, and he'll have told ye as much."
Harry nodded his head in unison with the words as though this was just the counsel he had expected. Maryska, thinking that she knew priests well, clasped her precious bag firmly in both her little hands and looked the enemy squarely in the face.
"We will pay you money," she said with much dignity. "I have ten pounds here, and you shall have it. What you say does not matter to us at all. We are not frightened of the judges, Harry and I. If you marry us to-day, we shall go away to Italy, and the gendarmes will not find us. He has said that I must go back to Hampstead, but I will never do so. I will kill myself if you do not marry us. Harry knows that it is true, and that is why we have come here. Perhaps, if you married us, he has some money and will add it to mine. There are other priests, but we do not wish to go to them. Oh, sir, will you not do it for those who love? Will you not make us happy? It is nothing to me this ceremony, but to him it is so much. And I have the money here; I will show it to you if you wish."
She began to fumble with the bag while the good father and Harry regarded her with an amazement beyond all words. Never had Maurice Healy heard such an address or seen so pretty a bargainer in that little room. And the horror of it all—her ignorance, her childish faith, her frank confession! He was as clay in her hands already—and she, a heathen.
"But, my dear young lady, 'tis far from understanding ye are," he gasped at length; "not a penny of your money would I be touching anyway. Don't you see I can't marry ye because the law will not let me? 'Tis not me, but the Parliament that has the making of it. Ye must take your money to them."
Maryska looked at him almost with pity. Harry's appeal to her might as well have been addressed to the stucco walls of the bungalow.