“I am leaving you because I can not live with you any longer, because the atmosphere you breathe is impossible to me, because your religion is not my religion, or your God my God!”
“You surprise me. What have I done?”
“A month ago I asked you to set your face as a clergyman against the shameful and immoral marriage of a man of scandalous reputation, but you refused; you excused the man and sided with him. This morning you thought it necessary to investigate in public the case of one of that man's victims, and you sided with the man again—you denied to the girl the right even to mention the scoundrel's name!”
“How differently we see things! Do you know I thought my examination of the poor young thing was merciful to the point of gentleness! And that, I may tell you—notwithstanding the female volcano who came down on me—was the view of the board and of his lordship the chairman.”
“Then I am sorry to differ from them. I thought it unnecessary and unmanly and brutal, and even blasphemous!”
“Mr. Storm! Do you know what you are saying?”
“Perfectly, and I came to say it.”
His eyes were wild, his voice was hoarse; he was like a man breaking the bonds of a tyrannical slavery.
“You called that poor child a prostitute because she had wasted the good gifts which God had given her. But God has given good gifts to you also—gifts of intellect and eloquence with which you might have raised the fallen and supported the weak, and defended the downtrodden and comforted the broken-hearted—and what have you done with them? You have bartered them for benefices, and peddled them for popularity; you have given them in exchange for money, for houses, for furniture, for things like this—and this—and this! You have sold your birthright for a mess of pottage, therefore you are the prostitute!”
“You're not yourself, sir; leave me,” and, crossing the room, the canon touched the bell.