"I am completely at sea. All things I have believed seem to be failing me. I don't even know what I believe."
"Will you pardon me," Strathmore asked, "if I ask why you consult me rather than your Superior?"
Maurice flushed and hesitated: yet he felt that nothing would do but absolute frankness.
"I will tell you!" he returned. "I was to be a priest. I went into the Clergy House supposing that that was settled. I see now that I really followed a friend. If he went, I couldn't be shut out. Now I have been among men, and"--
He hesitated, but the friendly smile of the other reassured him.
"And among women," he went on bravely; "and--and"--
"And you have discovered the meaning of a certain text in Genesis which declares that 'male and female created He them,'" concluded Strathmore.
Wynne felt the tone like a caress. He seemed to be understood without need of more speech. His condition, which had seemed to him so intricate and so unique, began to appear possible and human. He was not so completely cut off from human sympathy as he had felt.
"Yes," he assented; "I will be frank about it. I did not think that Father Frontford would understand what it meant to feel that life is given to us to be glorified by the love of a woman."
"If this is all that is troubling you," Strathmore remarked, "it seems to me that your position, though it may not be pleasant, is not very tragical. Our bishops are generally willing to absolve from vows of celibacy."
"I doubt if Father Frontford would be," Maurice commented involuntarily.
"That is perhaps one of his virtues in the eyes of his supporters," Strathmore suggested with a twinkle.
"I have not taken the vows, however," Maurice responded hastily, flushing, and ignoring the thrust.
"When I meant to take them, it was the same thing."
"Do I understand you that to intend to do a thing and then to change the mind is the same as to do it?"
"Oh, no; not that; but I am not clear that it isn't my duty to take them. I'm not sure that it is right for a priest to marry--if you will pardon my saying so."
"And you come to me to convince you? It seems to me that Providence has already done that through the agency of some young woman. If you really know what it is to love a good woman there is no real doubt in your mind as to the sacredness of marriage,--for the clergy or for anybody else. Isn't your trouble perhaps an obstinate dislike to seem to abandon a position once taken?"