“I cannot truly say it,” Romayne answered.

The time had now come for speaking plainly.  Father Benwell no longer advanced to his end under cover of a cloud of words.

“A little while since,” he said, “you spoke of Penrose as of a man whose lot in life you longed to share.  The career which has associated him with an Indian mission is, as I told you, only adapted to a man of his special character and special gifts.  But the career which has carried him into the sacred ranks of the priesthood is open to every man who feels the sense of divine vocation, which has made Penrose one of Us.”

“No, Father Benwell!  Not open to every man.”

“I say, Yes!”

“It is not open to Me!”

“I say it is open to You.  And more—­I enjoin, I command, you to dismiss from your mind all merely human obstacles and discouragements.  They are beneath the notice of a man who feels himself called to the priesthood.  Give me your hand, Romayne!  Does your conscience tell you that you are that man?”

Romayne started to his feet, shaken to the soul by the solemnity of the appeal.

“I can’t dismiss the obstacles that surround me!” he cried, passionately.  “To a man in my position, your advice is absolutely useless.  The ties that bind me are beyond the limit of a priest’s sympathies.”

“Nothing is beyond the limit of a priest’s sympathies.”

“Father Benwell, I am married!”

Father Benwell folded his arms over his breast—­looked with immovable resolution straight in Romayne’s face—­and struck the blow which he had been meditating for months past.

“Rouse your courage,” he said sternly.  “You are no more married than I am.”

CHAPTER IV.

ON THE ROAD TO ROME.

THERE was not a sound in the room.  Romayne stood, looking at the priest

“Did you hear what I said?” Father Benwell asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you understand that I really mean what I said?”

He made no reply—­he waited, like a man expecting to hear more.

Father Benwell was alive to the vast importance, at such a moment, of not shrinking from the responsibility which he had assumed.  “I see how I distress you,” he said; “but, for your sake, I am bound to speak out.  Romayne! the woman whom you have married is the wife of another man.  Don’t ask me how I know it—­I do know it.  You shall have positive proof, as soon as you have recovered.  Come! rest a little in the easy-chair.”

He took Romayne’s arm, and led him to the chair, and made him drink some wine.  They waited a while.  Romayne lifted his head, with a heavy sigh.

“The woman whom I have married is the wife of another man.”  He slowly repeated the words to himself—­and then looked at Father Benwell.

“Who is the man?” he asked.

“I introduced you to him, when I was as ignorant of the circumstances as you are,” the priest answered.  “The man is Mr. Bernard Winterfield.”