"Then you can hold out no hope for me?"
"God knows I can't."
"Although I do not love this man I must live with him as his wife?"
"It is hard, very hard, but there seems to be no help for it."
I rose to my feet, and went back to the window. A wild impulse of rebellion was coming over me.
"I shall feel like a bad woman," I said.
"Don't say that," said Father Dan. "You are married to the man anyway."
"All the same I shall feel like my husband's mistress—his married mistress, his harlot."
Father Dan was shocked, and the moment the words were out of my mouth I was more frightened than I had ever been before, for something within seemed to have forced them out of me.
When I recovered possession of my senses Father Dan, nervously fumbling with the silver cross that hung over his cassock, was talking of the supernatural effect of the sacrament of marriage. It was God Who joined people together, and whom God joined together no man might put asunder. No circumstances either, no trial or tribulation. Could it be thought that a bond so sacred, so indissoluble, was ever made without good effect? No, the Almighty had His own ways with His children, and this great mystery of holy wedlock was one of them.