Up from the guests' room below there came the hubbub of those at supper, the shouts of the copper captains for more petits pigolets of wine, mixed with the clattering of plates and dishes, the calls of other travellers for food, and the general disturbance that accompanies a French inn full of visitors, as Father Sholto answered gravely: "My child, he might have been a priest and I not know it; God might even have allowed so wicked a scheme to enter his heart as that, being one, he should go through a form of marriage with an innocent woman. But, my dear, one thing is still certain, he was not, is not, a priest--I know it now beyond all doubt; you are as lawfully his wife as it is possible for you to be." "What--what, then, was the use of such a statement, such a lie, added to all the others which--God forgive him!--he has already told since first he darkened our door?" "The gratification of his hate, his revenge against you and all of us. He hated you because you had never loved him, and had at last come to despise him; he hated Bertie because you had always loved him" (as he spoke, the eyes of those two met in one swift glance, and then were quickly lowered to the table at which they sat); "he hated me because I knew him. And, remember, until he had put himself in the power of Douglas and Sir Charles Ames by insinuating himself to be what he was not--a priest--he thought that I should soon be removed from his path for ever. Once in the power of the English Government, my tongue would have been silenced; it would have been hard to prove, perhaps, that he was not a priest; that you were a lawful married woman." "Yet, surely, it could have been proved in some way. And--and--of what avail such a lie to him? Knowing he is not a priest, he would not have dared to take another wife." "Perhaps," replied Sholto, "he had no desire to take another. If he is not mad, he had but one wish, to outrage and insult you, and thereby avenge himself upon you. Moreover, he must have some feelings still left in him--your very renunciation of him may have led to his denial of you." "How have you found for certain that he is no priest?" "In the easiest manner. A letter to the 'General' at Rome, another to the 'Provincial' at Lisbon, and, lo! a reply from each to the effect that neither under the name of Simeon Larpent nor the title of Viscount Fordingbridge had anyone been ever admitted to the Society of Jesus. At St. Omer, I knew, of course, such a thing could not have happened; nay, I knew more: I knew that neither as novice nor acolyte, even, had Fordingbridge ever been admitted, nor had he submitted to any of those severe examinations which all must pass through ere they can become these alone. As for priest--well, it was impossible, impossible that he could be one and I not know it, never have heard of it." "So, Kate," whispered Bertie to her, "you are still Lady Fordingbridge. As far apart as ever--as far apart as ever."