“What do you mean, dearest?”
“I have been so much puzzled lately—thinking so much—and—and—I am sorry you have become a Protestant. It makes all so hard.”
“My dear, this is—I do not understand.”
“I have been thinking,” went on Isabel bravely, “whether perhaps the Catholic Church is not right after all.”
Hubert loosed her hands and stood up. She crouched into the shadow of the interior of the high chair, and looked up at him, terrified. His cheek twitched a little.
“Isabel, this is foolishness. I know what the Catholic faith is. It is not true; I have been through it all.”
He was speaking nervously and abruptly. She said nothing. Then he suddenly dropped on his knees himself.
“My dearest, I understand. You were doing this for me. I quite understand. It is what I too——” and then he stopped.
“I know, I know,” she cried piteously. “It is just what I have feared so terribly—that—that our love has been blinding us both. And yet, what are we to do, what are we to do? Oh! God—Hubert, help me.”
Then he began to speak in a low emphatic voice, holding her hands, delicately stroking one of them now and again, and playing with her fingers. She watched his curly head in the firelight as he talked, and his keen face as he looked up.