"Do you?"
"Oh, yes, yes, I understand it," said Hilary with a tortured look. "I know what unhappiness and loneliness can do.... Sometimes I wish I didn't. How can I condemn sin when I understand the sinner so well?"
"You must, though," said Mary calmly.
She knew well this mood of his, by this time she knew his weakness. The relation between these two had changed. No longer did she with humility look up to Hilary as a saint. The change was not so much in him as in her. In the old days, before her marriage, Hilary had often accused himself to her as a weak and erring man, he had passionately resisted her attempts to canonize him. Since then he had talked to her more frankly but in the same way, she knew his yearning for perfection, and his despair of it; she knew too, though not by direct expression, his human longings and his loneliness. She no longer idealized him, she did not need to. But he was intensely interesting to her. He was only a man now, but still better than other men, stronger, with higher aims. She admired him. But they now stood more on an equality; her manner toward him had even a tinge of maternal authority. For she felt that all men, all that she knew, however gifted and interesting, were somewhat childish.
She herself had reached maturity. With the birth of her children she had come into her heritage of life. She was now so firmly planted on the earth, so deeply rooted, that it seemed nothing could shake her. The dreams of her girlhood, of life beyond life, passed by her now like the clouds on the wind. She was satisfied, assured.
Hilary's life, even, seemed to her dream-like, cloud-like, because it was so restless, so tormented. The need for incessant action and struggle that drove him, as it drove Laurence in a different direction, seemed to her sometimes absurd. Religion to her meant tranquillity, the calm certitude that one was on the right path, doing one's duty and refraining from wrong. Simple—and easy.
She stayed a little while longer with Hilary, but insisted that he should not talk. She knew that he liked to have her sitting beside him, immobile, her hands folded on her knee, not even looking at him. She knew now very well what her presence meant to him; their constant meeting in the work of the church; their talks, intimate in a sense, though she made no personal confessions to him and he never expressed his feeling for her in speech. She was quite satisfied with this relation, and sure that Hilary would never overstep the bounds of right and reason, even if tempted to do so. She herself had not the least temptation. All her pride lay in keeping things exactly as they were.