“Perhaps far worse,” said the priest. “You do not know her temptations, her enlightenment, her instruction; she may have been weak and wretched, rather than deliberately wicked; you don’t know. But you, clear-eyed, instructed, independent, able to look after yourself, you are dallying deliberately with good and evil, weighing both. If you denied your God what excuse would you give Him when you saw Him at last? That man tells you to come out from the Church _bravely_! Bravely! Faugh! That is not courage; it is cowardice, the coward who will not face pain for the sake of the Lord Who bore so much for her! A coward, I tell you! And do you realize that this country of ours is honeycombed with the divorce evil? That homes are wrecked, children made destitute, men and women sunk into vileness because they will not be denied their successive fancies, and that they profane marriage because they will not bear the brand of their true label? Will you tolerate the idea of joining their ranks, of helping to spread the poison which eats away the very foundation of civilization? And then call that _brave_? Benedict Arnold tried to betray Washington and the gate to the north. What would your treason betray? You are disloyal, even to your land, when you do not set your face against that which is undermining her. Don’t let yourself call your temptation by pretty names. It is not courage, but cowardice. It is not being married by a magistrate, for they cannot marry; it is being licensed to be called Mrs. Rodney Moore, but remaining the shamed Cicely Adair.” “Father Morley,” poor Cicely’s voice shook with dry sobs, “don’t you see? Rod is great; he is not bad. Didn’t God Himself give him to me to love?” “Possibly; I don’t say no,” said the priest gently. “There are many strange ways by which souls are led home. But decidedly God did not give Rodney to you to marry, for he is not free to marry, and God does not want you to help Rodney to go lower. Perhaps he is given you to love and to save by sacrificing for him your happiness; it looks to me probable. Evidently Rodney has good in him, or he would not have told you that he was married, until he had you in his power. I can see how you love him when you can entertain an idea so repugnant to you as denying your Faith for him. This is your way of salvation, and in taking the right turn you can offer to God your pain; it will plead for grace for Rodney, cut off from it by his own act.” “I thought of that, Father,” whispered Cis. “But, oh--never to see him? Never, never? This is my engagement ring; Rodney made the design; I am a Christmas child.” The priest bent forward better to see it; his vision was short.