“With my whole heart, I say it! Be converted, and be happy. Be happy, and you will be a good husband. I speak in your wife ‘s interest as well as in yours. People who are happy in each other’s society, will yield a little on either side, even on questions of religious belief. And perhaps there may follow a more profitable result still. So far as I have observed, a good husband’s example is gladly followed by his wife. Don’t think that I am trying to persuade you against your will! I am only telling you, in my own justification, from what motives of love for yourself, and of true interest in your welfare, I speak. You implied just now that you had still some objections left. If I can remove them—well and good. If I fail—if you cannot act on purely conscientious conviction—I not only advise, I entreat you, to remain as you are. I shall be the first to acknowledge that you have done right.”
(This moderation of tone would appeal irresistibly, as Stella well knew, to her husband’s ready appreciation of those good qualities in others which he did not himself possess. Once more her suspicion wronged Penrose. Had he his own interested motives for pleading her cause? At the bare thought of it, she left her chair and, standing under the window, boldly interrupted the conversation by calling to Romayne.)
“Lewis!” she cried, “why do you stay indoors on this beautiful day? I am sure Mr. Penrose would like a walk in the grounds.”
Penrose appeared alone at the window. “You are quite right, Mrs. Romayne,” he said; “we will join you directly.”
In a few minutes he turned the corner of the house, and met Stella on the lawn. Romayne was not with him. “Is my husband not coming with us?” she asked. “He will follow us,” Penrose answered. “I believe he has some letters to write.”
Stella looked at him, suspecting some underhand exercise of influence on her husband.
If she had been able to estimate the noble qualities in the nature of Penrose, she might have done him the justice to arrive at a truer conclusion. It was he who had asked leave (when Stella had interrupted them) to take the opportunity of speaking alone with Mrs. Romayne. He had said to his friend, “If I am wrong in my anticipation of the effect of your change of religion on your wife, let me find it out from herself. My one object is to act justly toward you and toward her. I should never forgive myself if I made mischief between you, no matter how innocent of any evil intention I might be.” Romayne had understood him. It was Stella’s misfortune ignorantly to misinterpret everything that Penrose said or did, for the all-sufficient reason that he was a Catholic priest. She had drawn the conclusion that her husband had deliberately left her alone with Penrose, to be persuaded or deluded into giving her sanction to aid the influence of the priest. “They shall find they are mistaken,” she thought to herself.
“Have I interrupted an interesting conversation?” she inquired abruptly. “When I asked you to come out, were you talking to my husband about his historical work?”
“No, Mrs. Romayne; we were not speaking at that time of the book.”
“May I ask an odd question, Mr. Penrose?”