“He listens, but He does not help. He has no pity. Yes, it is quite true; you know all that should have been kept secret. You know that I lied to you——”
Martin made the sign of the cross.
“I do not remember it,” he said.
“That I called myself Catharine Lovel—that I was vowed to silence, and on a pilgrimage!”
“I forgot all those things,” he answered, “when I heard the truth and your anguish.”
She covered her face with her hands.
“Now you will begin preaching a sermon.”
“God forbid,” he said; “I think that this night is teaching me that I was not born to be a priest.”
There was silence between them for a while. Martin Valliant did not move; he seemed set there like a statue. She could hear his deep breathing, a strangely human sound in the soft darkness.
She began to speak again.