“My son,” he said, “when a man and woman come to me to be married I always marry them. I do this for the sake of other people whom they might go away and marry if they did not marry each other. As you see, I do not seek your confidence; but your case seems to me to be one not altogether devoid of interest. Very few marriages that have come to my notice have brought such well-expressed regret within so short a time. I will hazard one question: were you not under the impression that you loved the lady you married, at the time you did so;”
“Loved her!” cried Lorison, wildly. “Never so well as now, though she told me she deceived and sinned and stole. Never more than now, when, perhaps, she is laughing at the fool she cajoled and left, with scarcely a word, to return to God only knows what particular line of her former folly.”
Father Rogan answered nothing. During the silence that succeeded, he sat with a quiet expectation beaming in his full, lambent eye.
“If you would listen—” began Lorison. The priest held up his hand.
“As I hoped,” he said. “I thought you would trust me. Wait but a moment.” He brought a long clay pipe, filled and lighted it.
“Now, my son,” he said.
Lorison poured a twelve month’s accumulated confidence into Father Rogan’s ear. He told all; not sparing himself or omitting the facts of his past, the events of the night, or his disturbing conjectures and fears.
“The main point,” said the priest, when he had concluded, “seems to me to be this—are you reasonably sure that you love this woman whom you have married?”
“Why,” exclaimed Lorison, rising impulsively to his feet—“why should I deny it? But look at me—am I fish, flesh or fowl? That is the main point to me, I assure you.”
“I understand you,” said the priest, also rising, and laying down his pipe. “The situation is one that has taxed the endurance of much older men than you—in fact, especially much older men than you. I will try to relieve you from it, and this night. You shall see for yourself into exactly what predicament you have fallen, and how you shall, possibly, be extricated. There is no evidence so credible as that of the eyesight.”