“You are very kind, Father Benwell. The subject has little interest for me. My future life is shaped out—domestic retirement, ennobled by religious duties.”
Still pacing the room, Father Benwell stopped at that reply, and put his hand kindly on Romayne’s shoulder.
“We don’t allow a good Catholic to drift into domestic retirement, who is worthy of better things,” he said. “The Church, Romayne wishes to make use of you. I never flattered any one in my life, but I may say before your face what I have said behind your back. A man of your strict sense of honor—of your intellect—of your high aspirations—of your personal charm and influence—is not a man whom we can allow to run to waste. Open your mind, my friend, fairly to me, and I will open my mind fairly to you. Let me set the example. I say it with authority; an enviable future is before you.”
Romayne’s pale cheeks flushed with excitement. “What future?” he asked, eagerly. “Am I free to choose? Must I remind you that a man with a wife cannot think only of himself?”
“Suppose you were not a man with a wife.”
“What do you mean?”
“Romayne, I am trying to break my way through that inveterate reserve which is one of the failings in your character. Unless you can prevail on yourself to tell me those secret thoughts, those unexpressed regrets, which you can confide to no other man, this conversation must come to an end. Is there no yearning, in your inmost soul, for anything beyond the position which you now occupy?”
There was a pause. The flush on Romayne’s face faded away. He was silent.
“You are not in the confessional,” Father Benwell reminded him, with melancholy submission to circumstances. “You are under no obligation to answer me.”
Romayne roused himself. He spoke in low, reluctant tones. “I am afraid to answer you,” he said.