“Serious reason?” Romayne repeated.  “How can such an idea have entered your head?  I only complain of irritating trifles now and then.  Even the best of women is not perfect.  It’s hard to expect it from any of them.”

(The interpretation of this reply depended entirely on the tone in which it was spoken.  What was the animating spirit in this case?  Irony or Indulgence?  Stella was ignorant of the indirect methods of irritation, by means of which Father Benwell had encouraged Romayne’s doubts of his wife’s motive for the reception of Winterfield.  Her husband’s tone, expressing this state of mind, was new to her.  She sat down again, divided between hope and fear, waiting to hear more.  The next words, spoken by Penrose, astounded her.  The priest, the Jesuit, the wily spiritual intruder between man and wife, actually took the wife’s side!)

“Romayne,” he proceeded quietly, “I want you to be happy.”

“How am I to be happy?”

“I will try and tell you.  I believe your wife to be a good woman.  I believe she loves you.  There is something in her face that speaks for her—­even to an inexperienced person like myself.  Don’t be impatient with her!  Put away from you that besetting temptation to speak in irony—­it is so easy to take that tone, and sometimes so cruel.  I am only a looker-on, I know.  Domestic happiness can never be the happiness of my life.  But I have observed my fellow-creatures of all degrees—­and this, I tell you, is the result.  The largest number of happy men are the husbands and fathers.  Yes; I admit that they have terrible anxieties—­but they are fortified by unfailing compensations and encouragements.  Only the other day I met with a man who had suffered the loss of fortune and, worse still, the loss of health.  He endured those afflictions so calmly that he surprised me.  ’What is the secret of your philosophy?’ I asked.  He answered, ’I can bear anything while I have my wife and my children.’  Think of that, and judge for yourself how much happiness you may have left yet ungathered in your married life.”

(Those words touched Stella’s higher nature, as the dew touches the thirsty ground.  Surely they were nobly spoken!  How would her husband receive them?)

“I must think with your mind, Penrose, before I can do what you ask of me.  Is there any method of transformation by which I can change natures with you?” That was all he said—­and he said it despondingly.

Penrose understood, and felt for him.

“If there is anything in my nature, worthy to be set as an example to you,” he replied, “you know to what blessed influence I owe self-discipline and serenity of mind.  Remember what I said when I left you in London, to go back to my friendless life.  I told you that I found, in the Faith I held, the one sufficient consolation which helped me to bear my lot.  And—­if there came a time of sorrow in the future—­I entreated you to remember what I had said.  Have you remembered it?”