laughing at the fool she cajoled and left, with scarcely a word, to return to God only knows what particular line of her former folly.”
Father Rogan answered nothing. During the silence that succeeded, he sat with a quiet expectation beaming in his full, lambent eye.
“If you would listen———” began Lorison. The priest held up his hand.
“As I hoped,” he said. “I thought you would trust me. Wait but a moment.” He brought a long clay pipe, filled and lighted it.
“Now, my son,” he said.
Lorison poured a twelvemonth’s accumulated confidence into Father Rogan’s ear. He told all; not sparing himself or omitting the facts of his past, the events of the night, or his disturbing conjectures and fears.
“The main point,” said the priest, when he had concluded, “seems to me to be this—are you reasonably sure that you love this woman whom you have married?”
“Why,” exclaimed Lorison, rising impulsively to his feet—“why should I deny it? But look at me—am I fish, flesh or fowl? That is the main point to me, I assure you.”
“I understand you,” said the priest, also rising, and laying down his pipe. “The situation is one that has taxed the endurance of much older men than you—in fact, especially much older men than you. I will try to relieve you from it, and this night. You shall see for yourself into exactly what predicament you have fallen,
