Her eyes might swiftly have become sightless as she replied, "There was no 'change.' It had to be that or Father's way of thinking. And I could not trust my small strength with Father's self-sufficient philosophy. This represented one more cage, but a necessary one, if I was to obtain enough self-discipline to enable me to live. You know I am not being dramatic. Sometimes I thought of that way out, only it did not seem quite fair to John, until he should be old enough to understand about heredity and choose for himself."
"You—you don't make yourself exactly clear."
"No. Well, never mind! ... Peter, by chance, knocked up against a clever Jesuit. I do admire that much-criticized sect, Cyprian. Their hard logic; their cold positivity of thought. This one thrilled one's sense of humour first by a speech made to a Church of England padre, which, beginning on a note of toleration crashed to conclusion on a chord of glorious bigotry. 'After all,' he assured his vacillating companion, 'We both serve the same Master; you in your way, I in His.'
"Later, this man was discussing the conversion of a well-known statesman with Peter. 'He was too intellectual,' said the Jesuit, 'to be satisfied longer with less than all the Truth his brain could assimilate.' That speech impressed Peter as, doubtless, it was meant to do, with his tendency to brain-worship. He, also, began to be sure that the World's Thinkers, among whom he would like to be numbered some time, must, universally, find the Whole Truth here.
"And you know, Cyprian, he is clever. They did not make the mistake of approaching him on the sentimental, or even the romantically beautiful side, of the religion. He is certainly a more valuable ally to the Catholic Church than undoctrinal I."
"The thing has not yet interfered with Peter's instinctive love of liberty," Cyprian pointed out. "Whereas, you and I are, surely, threatened by its precepts."
He went no further. Not yet had he broached to her that which he understood to be passing in Aunt Brillianna's mind; more tentatively in his own. But Ferlie smiled with wistful understanding.
"There is no public cause for a divorce, that I know of," she said quietly, "And, apart from Catholicity, isn't divorce rather impossible as a solution for Us?"
She was placing her finger upon something which formed the basis of their mutual pride. They did not give to take back again, whatever the type of altar to which they had dedicated the gift.
The mockery of her marriage-service struck him afresh.... "That theirs may be the love which knows no ending, Whom Thou for evermore doth join in one...."