Robert Orange Part 41

He stopped short.

"Pray finish the sentence."

"Well, I haven't much patience with those who want to linger, and look back, and cheat time. One must get along."

Pensee felt annoyed, and began to talk coldly about the housing of the poor, and winters which she had spent in Florence.

"Here are your letters," exclaimed her companion suddenly.

She turned them over with languid interest, murmuring unconsciously to herself the names of her correspondents.

"From dear Ethel. Why is she in Edinburgh? I hope her father isn't ill again. Alice. Uncle. Mrs. Lanark. Mary Butler. Prince d'Alchingen. That tiresome Miss Bates. Mr. Seward." She paused and flushed deeply.

"Robert."

Then she turned to Father Foster with shining eyes.

"This letter," said she, "is from Mr. Orange. Don't you admire his handwriting?"

"A beautiful hand, certainly."

"I wonder what he has to say, and why he is abroad. Isn't that a foreign stamp?"

"The post-mark is Paris."

"So it is. Will you excuse me if I read it."

She broke the seal, and read the contents, while every vestige of colour left her face.

"I can't make it out," she said; "there must be another letter for Brigit. Will you look?"

He untied the packet, and recognised presently Orange's handwriting on an envelope.

"You seem rather displeased," said Pensee; "you think this is all very strange. It--it isn't a common case."

"No case is common."

"Well, you must help me to decide whether I ought to give her this letter at once. I can't take so much responsibility."

"Neither can I. She is a perfectly free woman now, at any rate."

He did not approve of the situation, and he made no attempt to conceal his feelings. His face became set. Pensee thought she detected a certain reprimand in the very tone of his voice.

"It isn't a common case," she repeated again. "He says he is on his way to Rome--to the Jesuits--for a long Retreat, if they will take him. If he knew--what has happened--he might change his mind."

"What! you would have him turn back?"

"Oh, don't be so hard."

"I am not hard," he added more gently. "But would this woman, if she really loved him, wish him to turn back? And, if there is anything in him, could he ever be happy in any stopping short of the fullest renunciation--once resolved on that renunciation?"

"Ah, don't put it that way to her. She has had so much trouble already.

Your Church seems so selfish. Forgive me, but I do resent these celibate views. They are unnatural."

"I shan't interfere. Take her the letter by all means. She must decide for herself."

Pensee rose from the table, and went up the stairs to the room where Brigit still knelt by Parflete's dead body.

"Dearest," said Lady Fitz Rewes, "I think you ought to read this letter.

I have had one also. Robert thinks of taking a great step, and perhaps----"

Her glance met Brigit's.

"No," said Brigit, under her breath: "no."

Then, with trembling hands, she read the letter once, twice, three times.

"Say something," said Pensee, touching her. "Say something, Brigit."

She smiled and held the letter to the candle flame. It caught fire and burnt away quickly while she held it.

"Mind your hand--it will catch your hand."

"I don't feel it," said Brigit. She bore the scar of that burn always.

"Say something," implored Pensee.

"He is on his way to Rome. He asks me not to write to him. Castrillon is dying. They fought a duel."

"But of course you will write--now. You must write."

"Hasn't my love done harm enough already? I will never see him again. I shall never write to him again."

"You can't mean that. You can't realise what you are saying. People will like him all the better for fighting Castrillon."

"Oh, it isn't the duel, Pensee. He sees his way clearly. He has always tried not to see it. I, too, have tried not to see it. But all that is at an end now."

"And he will renounce his career."

"Everything! Everything!"

Pensee threw up her hands, and left the room. Father Foster was standing under a gas-jet at the end of the corridor reading his office. He looked at Lady Fitz Rewes.

"She won't stand in his way?" he asked quietly.

"She won't stand in his way," she answered. "I hope you realise what that means--to her."

"I hope I can realise what it means to both of them," said he.