“No!” said the painter with a kind of groan. He sat down in a tall, carven gothic chair,--the furniture of one of his pictures,--and rested his head against its high back and looked at the priest across the room. “Excuse me,” he continued with a strong effort. “I am ready to befriend you to the utmost of my power. What was it you wanted to ask me? I have told you truly what I thought of your scheme of going to America; but I may very well be mistaken. Was it about that Miss Vervain desired you to consult me?” His voice and manner hardened again in spite of him. “Or did she wish me to advise you about the renunciation of your priesthood? You must have thought that carefully over for yourself.” “Yes, I do not think you could make me see that as a greater difficulty than it has appeared to me.” He paused with a confused and daunted air, as if some important point had slipped his mind. “But I must take the step; the burden of the double part I play is unendurable, is it not?” “You know better than I.” “But if you were such a man as I, with neither love for your vocation nor faith in it, should you not cease to be a priest?” “If you ask me in that way,--yes,” answered the painter. “But I advise you nothing. I could not counsel another in such a case.” “But you think and feel as I do,” said the priest, “and I am right, then.” “I do not say you are wrong.” Ferris was silent while Don Ippolito moved up and down the room, with his sliding step, like some tall, gaunt, unhappy girl. Neither could put an end to this interview, so full of intangible, inconclusive misery. Ferris drew a long breath, and then said steadily, “Don Ippolito, I suppose you did not speak idly to me of your--your feeling for Miss Vervain, and that I may speak plainly to you in return.” “Surely,” answered the priest, pausing in his walk and fixing his eyes upon the painter. “It was to you as the friend of both that I spoke of my love, and my hope--which is oftener my despair.” “Then you have not much reason to believe that she returns your--feeling?” “Ah, how could she consciously return it? I have been hitherto a priest to her, and the thought of me would have been impurity. But hereafter, if I can prove myself a man, if I can win my place in the world.... No, even now, why should she care so much for my escape from these bonds, if she did not care for me more than she knew?” “Have you ever thought of that extravagant generosity of Miss Vervain’s character?” “It is divine!” “Has it seemed to you that if such a woman knew herself to have once wrongly given you pain, her atonement might be as headlong and excessive as her offense? That she could have no reserves in her reparation?” Don Ippolito looked at Ferris, but did not interpose. “Miss Vervain is very religious in her way, and she is truth itself. Are you sure that it is not concern for what seems to her your terrible position, that has made her show so much anxiety on your account?”