“I met him,” said I, with a voice less steady than I desired it to be, for my heart was straightway in insurrection at the topic. “Madame told me, incidentally. But it is not too late, father! I may call it so when she is dead, or I.”
“It is your hurt that speaks in haste,” said he rebukingly. “But you know you are wrong, and such words idle. Indeed, my dear, dear boy, I would you had her, not he. But her troth is solemnly plighted, and he is a good man and fair to look at; though I like him not over well. As he was a Protestant, I long stood out against him; but Giles de Lamourie is now half English at heart, and Yvonne is wilful. Why were you not here to help me a half year back, my boy?”
“Ay! why not?” I exclaimed bitterly, gripping my pewter mug till it lost all semblance of a mug. “And why was I a fool, a blind, blind dolt, when I was here, two years back? But I am here now. And you shall see I am not too late!”
“You speak rashly, Paul,” said he, with a trace of sternness. “You may be sure, however much I love you, I will not help you now in your wicked purpose. Would you make her false to her word?”
“Her word was false to her heart, that I know,” said I. “Better be false for a little than for a lifetime, and two lives made as one death for it.”
The round, kindly face smiled ironically at the passion which had crept into my voice.
“You speak now as a poet, I think, Paul,” said he. “I suppose I must allow for some hyperbole and not be too much alarmed at your passion. Yet I must confess you seem to me too old for this child-talk of life and death, as if they were both compassed in a woman’s loving or not loving.”
“I speak with all sobriety, father,” said I, “and I speak of that which I know. Forgive me if I suggest that you do less.”
The priest’s eyes shaded as with sorrowful remembrance, and he looked out across the apple-trees as he answered:
“You think I have always been a priest,” said he; “that I have always dwelt where the passions and pains of earth can touch me only as reflected from the hearts of others—the hearts into which I look as into a mirror. How should I understand what I see in such a mirror, if I had not myself once known these things that make storm in man’s life? I have loved, Paul.”