“Yes?” said Stafford, looking at him almost as if he were amused, for his sudden outburst had left him quite calm.

“If I believed that, I’d cut off my hand rather than break the vow.”

“I knew it!” cried Stafford, “I knew it!”

Morewood was touched with pity.

“If you’re right,” he said, “it won’t be so hard to you.  You’ll get over it.”

“Get over it?”

“Yes; what you believe will help you.  You’ve no choice, you know.”

Stafford still wore a look of half-amusement.

“You have never felt belief?” he asked.

“Not for many years.  That’s all gone.”

“You think you have been in love?”

“Of course I have—­half a dozen times.”

“No more than the other,” said Stafford decisively.

Morewood was about to speak, but Stafford went on quickly: 

“I have told you what belief is—­I could tell you what love is; you know no more the one than the other.  But why should I?  I doubt if you would understand.  You think you couldn’t be shocked.  I should shock you.  Let it be.  I think I could charm you, too.  Let that be.”

A pause followed.  Stafford still sat motionless, but his face gradually changed from its stern aspect to the look that Morewood had once caught on his canvas.

“You’re in love with her still?” he exclaimed.

“Still?”

“Yes.  Haven’t you conquered it?  I’m a poor hand at preaching, but, by Jove!  If I thought like you, I’d never think of the girl again.”

“I mean to marry her,” said Stafford quietly.  “I have chosen.”

Morewood was in very truth shocked.  But Stafford’s morals, after all, were not his care.

“Perhaps she won’t have you,” he suggested at last, as though it were a happy solution.

Stafford laughed outright.

“Then I could go back to my priesthood, I suppose?”

“Well—­after a time.”

“As a burglar who is caught before his robbery goes back to his trade.  As if it made the smallest difference—­as if the result mattered!”

“I suppose you are right there.”

“Of course.  But she will have me.”

“Do you think so?”

“I don’t doubt it.  If I doubted it, I should die.”

“I doubt it.”

“Pardon me; I dare say you do.”

“You don’t want to talk about that?”

“It isn’t worth while.  I no more doubt it than that the sun shines.  Well, Mr. Morewood, I am obliged to you for hearing me out.  I had a curiosity to see how my resolution struck you.”

“If you have told me the truth, it strikes me as devilish.  I’m no saint; but if a man believes in good, as you do, by God, he oughtn’t to trample it under foot!”

Stafford took no notice of him, He rose and held out his hand.  “I’m going back to London to-morrow,” he said, “to wait till she comes.”

“God help you!” said Morewood, with a sudden impulse.