"You thought it would suit me!" cried Pauline, in a frenzy of disgust and irritation. "Me! For the stage and its triumphs a convent with simpering nuns! For Paris with its gay shops and drives, the town of Three Rivers, Province of Quebec, dans le Bas Canada! Oh! I see myself, thank you, in that galère, I assure you! No—no—that honourable extinction is not for me yet awhile. Après, mon pere, après—après, I may return and be glad of the haven, but not now."
"The two minutes are up," said Crabbe laconically. "I'm sorry to turn you out in such an afternoon, Father Rielle, but it is best for you and for mademoiselle. The hail's not quite so big as it was. I advise you to go at once."
The priest, divining some understanding between Crabbe and Pauline, and gradually calling to mind certain episodes of several years back, glanced from one to the other.
"I am not sure that I am not myself in the way," he said grimly. "Such rapid and excessive sensitiveness on behalf of Mlle. Clairville is creditable, but scarcely, I should think, its own reward."
"Do you deny that your being here is a menace to Miss Clairville's peace and that you—you a frocked and tonsured priest—have addressed words of love to her? If I did not utterly despise you, I should kick you out into the storm."
"You need do neither. I do not deny that I love Miss Clairville; I deny only that I have menaced or threatened her in any form. I say this to you—man of unclean, unholy habits—the priest is human. He is as God made him. He lives or dies, loves or hates by the will of God. When I look at Miss Clairville, I think of her as the possible helpmeet of my life, had it been spent in the service of this world instead of in the service of God. I think of her, monsieur, even reverently, purely, as the possible mother of my children."
This astonishing speech had much effect upon Pauline, who commenced weeping; the priest's voice—always a beautiful one—had dropped with a mournful cadence on the four last words, and Crabbe did not reply.
"Who can do more than that?" resumed the curé. "But that I cannot offer. Such care and worship, such devotion and tenderness I may not give. What then! I can at least be the instrument which shall shape her future career. I can point the way and deliver her from all these temptations of the world, the flesh and the devil. I do so now. I ask her to renounce the world now, at this moment, and to enter upon a new life to which it shall be my high and glorious privilege to introduce her."
The subtlety of the priest saved him. The noble melancholy of his words and gestures was abundantly convincing, and suddenly the situation, at one time threatening to become unpleasantly melodramatic, became normal. The reversion to the light commonplaces and glib phrases of society was felt in Crabbe's careless tones as he spoke of the weather, adding:—
"'Tis never too late to be polite. I'm putting my watch back into my pocket, and I'll go with you, Father Rielle. My refuge—a temporary one—is no longer needed, it's lightening very considerably, and I suppose you'll be going on to Clairville."