‘I shall not help you,’ he said sadly; ‘I do not suppose that I ever could have helped you much, but now I shall not even try.’ She looked at him quickly with a startled expression in her eyes. Then she turned to Marion. ‘Are you preventing him?’ she said. ‘No,’ said Hyacinth; ‘it is not Marion. But I am going away--going to England. I am going to be ordained, to become an English curate. Do you understand? I came here to-day to see the man who is to be my Rector, and to make final arrangements with him.’ ‘Oh, Hyacinth!’ For some minutes she said no more. He saw in her face a wondering sorrow, a pathetic submissiveness to an unexpected disappointment, like the look in the face of a dog struck suddenly by the hand of a friend. He felt that he could have borne her anger better. No doubt if he had made his confession to Augusta Goold he would have been overwhelmed with passionate wrath or withered by a superb contemptuous stare. Then he could have worked himself to anger in return. But this! ‘You will never speak to any of us again,’ she went on. You will be ashamed even to read the _Croppy_. You will wear a long black coat and gray gloves. You will learn to talk about the “Irish Problem” and the inestimable advantages of belonging to a world-wide Empire, and about the great heart of the English people. I see it all--all that will happen to you. Your hair will get quite smooth and sleek. Then you will become a Vicar of a parish. You will live in a beautiful house, with Virginia creeper growing over it and plum-trees in the garden. You will have a nice clean village for a parish, with old women who drop curtsies to you, and men--such men! stupid as bullocks! I know it all. And you will be ashamed to call yourself an Irishman. Oh, Hyacinth!’ Miss O’Dwyer’s catalogue of catastrophes was curiously mixed. Perhaps the comedy in it tended to obscure the utter degradation of the ruin she described. But the freakish incongruity of the speech did not strike Hyacinth. He found in it only two notes--pity that such a fate awaited him, and contempt for the man who submitted to it. ‘I cannot help myself. Will you not make an effort to understand? I am trying to do what is right.’ She shook her head. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I know it is no use. You could not understand even if I told you all I felt.’ Her eyes filled suddenly with tears. He heard her sob. Then she turned without a word and left them. He stood watching her till she reached the road and started on her walk to the railway-station. Then he took Marion’s two hands in his, and held them fast. ‘Will _you_ understand?’ he asked her. She looked up at him. Her face was all tenderness. Love shone on him--trusting, unquestioning, adoring love, love that would be loyal to the uttermost; but her eyes were full of a dumb wonder. CHAPTER XXV