“Indeed!” she replied.
“Yes,” said he, “in two or three days I am going to Baltimore. I intend to prepare myself for holy orders.”
“Do you mean that you are going to become a priest?” she wonderingly asked.
“Yes,” he replied, “in the Catholic church.”
She blankly looked at him, marvelling at what he had told her.
“Would you be kind enough to let me see him?” said he, vacantly. “Only for a moment. I would be very grateful.”
So great was her wonderment at the strange alteration in him, and so potent the deadening influence that radiated from him, that for a few moments she remained still and silent, fixedly looking at his face.
“Certainly, Fernando,” she suddenly replied, starting from her amazement. “Certainly, you shall see him. Come with me.”
She went quickly from the room and upstairs, almost doubting that he was following her, so noiseless was his movement. But as she entered the library and turned, he was there, and moving slowly to the casket on the table, with his lips parted, and his eyes fixed upon it. He laid his hat down as he reached it, and gazed intently on the face of the dead. For a moment, Muriel’s eyes sank from him to the floor, and when she looked up again, she saw that his hands were folded, his eyes closed, and his lips moving in prayer. She turned away, with a touched heart.
A few minutes went slowly by, and a dim sense of motion, as if the air stirred, came to her. He was standing near her, hat in hand. His face was mute, and sad, and very pale.