“What!” he said. “You're going to break your vow? You a parson!”
“Sometimes salvation lies in the breaking of a vow,” Anthony answered as they sat down. “Have you never registered a silent vow?”
Sergius looked at him hard in the eyes.
“Yes,” he said; and in his voice there was the hint of a thrilling note. “But I shan't—I shouldn't break it.”
“I've known a soul saved alive by the breaking of a vow,” Anthony answered. “Give me some champagne.”
Sergius—wondering, as much as the condition of his mind, possessed by one idea, would allow—filled his friend's glass. Anthony began to eat, with a well-assumed hunger. Sergius scarcely touched food, but drank a good deal of wine. The hands of the big oaken-cased clock that stood in a far corner of the room crawled slowly upon their round, recurring tour. Anthony's eyes were often upon them, then moved with a swift directness that was akin to passion to the face of Sergius, which was always strangely rigid, like the painted face of a mask.
“I sat by a woman to-day,” he said presently, “sat by her in an attic that looked on to a narrow street full of rain, and watched her die.”
“This morning?”
“Yes.”
“And now she's been out of the world seven or eight hours. Lucky woman!”