The Missioner threw himself into his worn armchair and stared into the unlighted grate.  His wife came behind him and laid a white hand upon his forehead; but her touch seemed to madden him, and he sprang away from her.

“No more of that,” he cried.  “If I was weak when I married you I will never be weak again.  You have your child.  Let that be enough for your tenderness.  I want none of it myself.  Do you hear?  I wish to devote myself henceforth to my parish.  My parish!  The parish of a coward and a traitor.”

Mark heard his mother now speaking in a voice that was strange to him, in a voice that did not belong to her, but that seemed to come from far away, as if she were lost in a snowstorm and calling for help.

“James, if you feel this hatred for me and for poor little Mark, it is better that we leave you.  We can go to my father in Cornwall, and you will not feel hampered by the responsibility of having to provide for us.  After what you have said to me, after the way you have looked at me, I could never live with you as your wife again.”

“That sounds a splendid scheme,” said the Missioner bitterly.  “But do you think I have so little logic that I should be able to escape from my responsibilities by planting them on the shoulders of another?  No, I sinned when I married you.  I did not believe and I do not believe that a priest ought to marry; but having done so I must face the situation and do my duty to my family, so that I may also do my duty to God.”

“Do you think that God will accept duty offered in that spirit?  If he does, he is not the God in Whom I believe.  He is a devil that can be propitiated with burnt offerings,” exclaimed the woman passionately.

“Do not blaspheme,” the priest commanded.

“Blaspheme!” she echoed.  “It is you, James, who have blasphemed nature this afternoon.  You have committed the sin against the Holy Ghost, and may you be forgiven by your God.  I can never forgive you.”

“You’re becoming hysterical.”

“How dare you say that?  How dare you?  I have loved you, James, with all the love that I could give you.  I have suffered in silence when I saw how you regarded family life, how unkind you were to Mark, how utterly wrapped up in the outward forms of religion.  You are a Pharisee, James, you should have lived before Our Lord came down to earth.  But I will not suffer any longer.  You need not worry about the evasion of your responsibilities.  You cannot make me stay with you.  You will not dare keep Mark.  Save your own soul in your own way; but Mark’s soul is as much mine as yours to save.”

During this storm of words Mark had been thinking how wicked it was of his father to upset his mother like that when she had a headache.  He had thought also how terrible it was that he should apparently be the cause of this frightening quarrel.  Often in Lima Street he had heard tales of wives who were beaten by their husbands and now he supposed that his own mother was going to be beaten.  Suddenly he heard her crying.  This was too much for him; he sprang from his hiding place and ran to put his arms round her in protection.