I sat listening to him with a rising and throbbing heart, and after another moment he stepped into the garden-house, and sat beside me.
"Mary," he said, in his passionate voice, "that's our case, isn't it? God married us from the very first. There has never been any other woman for me, and there never has been any other man for you—isn't that so, my darling? . . . Then what are they talking about—these churches and churchmen? It's they who are the real divorcers—trying to put those asunder whom God Himself has joined together. That's the plain sense of the matter, isn't it?"
I was trembling with fear and expectation. Perhaps it was the same with me as it had been before; perhaps I wanted (now more than ever) to believe what Martin was saying; perhaps I did not know enough to be able to answer him; perhaps my overpowering love and the position I stood in compelled me to agree. But I could not help it if it seemed to me that his clear mind—clear as a mountain river and as swift and strong—was sweeping away all the worn-out sophistries.
"Then what . . . what are we to do?" I asked him.
"Do? Our duty to ourselves, my darling, that's what we have to do. If we cannot be married according to the law of the Church, we must be married according to the law of the land. Isn't that enough? This is our own affair, dearest, ours and nobody else's. It's only a witness we want anyway—a witness before God and man that we intend to be man and wife in future."
"But Father Dan?"
"Leave him to me," said Martin. "I'll tell him everything. But come into the house now. You are catching a cold. Unless we take care they'll kill you before they've done."
Next day he leaned over the back of my chair as I sat in the chiollagh with baby in my lap, and said, in a low tone:
"I've seen Father Dan."
"Well?"