The priest spoke quite carelessly: "Oh! it is natural that we should feel a kind of regret in refusing an offering meant to be good, though it may not be good to us. You need not accuse yourself of that. Of course, you are not going to marry a Jew, nor to wish to marry one. That is out of the question. And there is no need of searching too scrupulously into those vague and complicated emotions which are for ever troubling the human heart. It will only confuse the mind and sully the conscience. They are like mists that float over the sky. Keep your eyes steadily fixed on the Day-star, and do not fear an occasional waft of scud. As long as the star shines, all is well. When you no longer see it, then is the time to fear."
Honora looked relieved, but not altogether satisfied. "But must there not have been some fault in me, when 1 could feel even the slightest regret in rejecting one who has rejected God?" she asked.
"I have but to repeat what I have said," was the answer. "You need not disturb yourself about the matter. Dismiss it from your mind, except so far as it is necessary for you to think in order to conduct yourself properly toward him in future. I take for granted that your intercourse must be a little more reserved than it has been."
"Oh! yes," she exclaimed. "I would rather not see him any more. And there was my fault, father. I have been very presumptuous. Both Mrs. Gerald and dear Mother Chevreuse were dissatisfied to have me associate with him. I could see that, though they said nothing. But I fancied that I was more liberal than they, and that I could decide perfectly well for myself. I had almost a mind to be displeased with them for wishing to keep him at a distance, as if they were uncharitable. Now I am punished, and I know that I deserve it."
"Oh! well," the priest said gently, his face growing thoughtful and sad at the allusion to his mother. "We all make mistakes; and to persons who wish to be generous, but have not much experience, prudence seems a very cold virtue, sometimes almost a vice. But believe me, my child, it is possible for really kind and generous feelings to lead to results far worse than even an excess of prudence might have caused. Don't distress yourself! Only have a care of going too far in either way."
Their talk was here interrupted by a ring of the door-bell so unusually loud as to betoken an excited visitor.
"A sick-call," said F. Chevreuse.
They heard Jane open the door; then a light step ran through the entry, and, without any ceremony of knocking, Miss Lily Carthusen burst into the room.
"O F. Chevreuse!" she cried, "Mr. Schöninger is in jail."
The priest looked at her without comprehending, and also without speaking. When sudden and terrible news have come upon us once, casting us to the earth, as though by a thunder-stroke, any startling address awakens in us ever after something of the same terror and distress.