II

'I am sorry you don't see it,' continued Tregellan, after a pause, 'to
me it seems impossible; considering your history it takes me by
surprise.'

The other frowned slightly; finding this persistence perhaps a trifle
crude, he remarked good-humouredly enough:

'Will you be good enough to explain your opposition? Do you object to
the girl? You have been back a week now, during which you have seen
almost as much of her as I.'

'She is a child, to begin with; there is five-and-twenty years'
disparity between you. But it's the relation I object to, not the
girl. Do you intend to live in Ploumariel?'

Sebastian smiled, with a suggestion of irony.

'Not precisely; I think it would interfere a little with my career;
why do you ask?'

'I imagined not; you will go back to London with your little Breton
wife, who is as charming here as the apple-blossom in her own garden.
You will introduce her to your circle, who will receive her with open
arms; all the clever bores, who write, and talk, and paint, and are
talked about between Bloomsbury and Kensington. Everybody who is
emancipated will know her, and everybody who has a "fad"; and they
will come in a body and emancipate her, and teach her their "fads."'

'That is a caricature of my circle, as you call it, Tregellan! though
I may remind you it is also yours. I think she is being starved in
this corner, spiritually. She has a beautiful soul, and it has had no
chance. I propose to give it one, and I am not afraid of the result.'

Tregellan threw away the stump of his cigar into the darkling street,
with a little gesture of discouragement, of lassitude.

'She has had the chance to become what she is, a perfect thing.'

'My dear fellow,' exclaimed his friend, 'I could not have said more
myself.'

The other continued, ignoring his interruption.

'She has had great luck. She has been brought up by an old eccentric,
on the English system of growing up as she liked. And no harm has come
of it, at least until it gave you the occasion of making love to her.'

'You are candid, Tregellan!'

'Let her go, Sebastian, let her go,' he continued, with increasing
gravity. 'Consider what a transplantation; from this world of
Ploumariel where everything is fixed for her by that venerable old
Curé, where life is so easy, so ordered, to yours, ours; a world
without definitions, where everything is an open question.'

'Exactly,' said the artist, 'why should she be so limited? I would
give her scope, ideas. I can't see that I am wrong.'

'She will not accept them, your ideas. They will trouble her, terrify
her; in the end, divide you. It is not an elastic nature. I have
watched it.'

'At least, allow me to know her,' put in the artist, a little grimly.

Tregellan shook his head.

'The Breton blood; her English mother: passionate Catholicism! a touch
of Puritan! Have you quite made up your mind, Sebastian?'

'I made it up long ago, Tregellan!'

The other looked at him, curiously, compassionately; with a touch of
resentment at what he found his lack of subtilty. Then he said at
last:

'I called it impossible; you force me to be very explicit, even cruel.
I must remind you, that you are, of all my friends, the one I value
most, could least afford to lose.'

'You must be going to say something extremely disagreeable! something
horrible,' said the artist, slowly.

'I am,' said Tregellan, 'but I must say it. Have you explained to
Mademoiselle, or her uncle, your--your peculiar position?'

Sebastian was silent for a moment, frowning: the lines about his mouth
grew a little sterner; at last he said coldly:

'If I were to answer, Yes?'

'Then I should understand that there was no further question of your
marriage.'

Presently the other commenced in a hard, leaden voice.

'No, I have not told Marie-Yvonne that. I shall not tell her. I have
suffered enough for a youthful folly; an act of mad generosity. I
refuse to allow an infamous woman to wreck my future life as she has
disgraced my past. Legally, she has passed out of it; morally,
legally, she is not my wife. For all I know she may be actually dead.'

The other was watching his face, very gray and old now, with an
anxious compassion.

'You know she is not dead, Sebastian,' he said simply. Then he added
very quietly as one breaks supreme bad tidings, 'I must tell you
something which I fear you have not realised. The Catholic Church does
not recognise divorce. If she marry you and find out, rightly or
wrongly, she will believe that she has been living in sin; some day
she will find it out. No damnable secret like that keeps itself for
ever: an old newspaper, a chance remark from one of your dear friends,
and the deluge. Do you see the tragedy, the misery of it? By God,
Sebastian, to save you both somebody shall tell her; and if it be not
you, it must be I.'

There was extremest peace in the quiet square; the houses seemed
sleepy at last, after a day of exhausting tranquillity, and the
chestnuts, under which a few children, with tangled hair and fair
dirty faces, still played. The last glow of the sun fell on the gray
roofs opposite; dying hard it seemed over the street in which the
Mitouards lived; and they heard suddenly the tinkle of an Angelus
bell. Very placid! the place and the few peasants in their pictorial
hats and caps who lingered. Only the two Englishmen sitting, their
glasses empty, and their smoking over, looking out on it all with
their anxious faces, brought in a contrasting note of modern life; of
the complex aching life of cities, with its troubles and its
difficulties.

'Is that your final word, Tregellan?' asked the artist at last, a
little wearily.

'It must be, Sebastian! Believe me, I am infinitely sorry.'

'Yes, of course,' he answered quickly, acidly; 'well, I will sleep
on it.'