Harry nodded his head in unison with the words as though this was just the counsel he had expected. Maryska, thinking that she knew priests well, clasped her precious bag firmly in both her little hands and looked the enemy squarely in the face. "We will pay you money," she said with much dignity. "I have ten pounds here, and you shall have it. What you say does not matter to us at all. We are not frightened of the judges, Harry and I. If you marry us to-day, we shall go away to Italy, and the gendarmes will not find us. He has said that I must go back to Hampstead, but I will never do so. I will kill myself if you do not marry us. Harry knows that it is true, and that is why we have come here. Perhaps, if you married us, he has some money and will add it to mine. There are other priests, but we do not wish to go to them. Oh, sir, will you not do it for those who love? Will you not make us happy? It is nothing to me this ceremony, but to him it is so much. And I have the money here; I will show it to you if you wish." She began to fumble with the bag while the good father and Harry regarded her with an amazement beyond all words. Never had Maurice Healy heard such an address or seen so pretty a bargainer in that little room. And the horror of it all--her ignorance, her childish faith, her frank confession! He was as clay in her hands already--and she, a heathen. "But, my dear young lady, 'tis far from understanding ye are," he gasped at length; "not a penny of your money would I be touching anyway. Don't you see I can't marry ye because the law will not let me? 'Tis not me, but the Parliament that has the making of it. Ye must take your money to them." Maryska looked at him almost with pity. Harry's appeal to her might as well have been addressed to the stucco walls of the bungalow. "I do not believe you," she said; "you have a little church there, and you can say the words. The money will buy you many things that this poor house is in need of. Please to marry us at once, and then we can go and be happy. Oh, sir, if you knew what it was to love! But priests do not know that; they have no hearts. You will let us sail to Italy without your blessing, and will remember it afterwards. Is it kind of you to do that when you think that you serve God?" "But, my child, I will give ye my blessing freely; 'tis to marry you I am unable." "We do not care for that; nothing matters to us but our love. We go to Italy to forget this dark country and its people. If you will not do as we wish, we shall ask no other. Is it for religion to refuse us, father, when we have come here as the Church would wish us to do?" "God be good to me!" he cried in despair, "but I don't know what to say to you, and that's the truth. I'll see your husband, my dear, and have a talk to him. Will you come into the dining-room while I have a word with ye, Mr. Lassett? 'Tis beyond all argument and reason--God knows it is."