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."

Romayne half raised himself from the chair. A momentary anger glittered
in his eyes, and faded out again, extinguished by the nobler emotions of
grief and shame. He remembered Winterfield's introduction to Stella.

"Her husband!" he said, speaking again to himself. "And she let me
introduce him to her. And she received him like a stranger." He paused,
and thought of it. "The proofs, if you please, sir," he resumed, with
sudden humility. "I don't want to hear any particulars. It will be
enough for me if I know beyond all doubt that I have been deceived and
disgraced."

Father Benwell unlocked his desk and placed two papers before Romayne.
He did his duty with a grave indifference to all minor considerations.
The time had not yet come for expressions of sympathy and regret.

"The first p