did not, she would die; for, now that
it is plain to her, how grievously she hath caused him to sorrow, her
love is like a fever till she can make amends for all."

"Amends!" growled Dr. Macgowan, "that's just like a woman too. Amends!
I'd like to know what amends there can be for such a scandal, such a
disgrace: 'pon my word she must have been mad; that's the only way of
accounting for it."

"It is not that there will be scandal," replied Father Antoine. "I am to
marry them in the chapel, and there is no one in all the wide world,
except to you and to me, that it will be known that they have been
husband and wife before."

"Eh! What! Married again!" exclaimed Dr. Macgowan. "Well, that's like a
woman too. Why, what damned nonsense! If she was ever his wife, she's
his wife now, isn't she? I shouldn't think you'd lend yourself, Father
Antoine, to any such transaction as that."

"Gently, gently!" replied Father Antoine: "rail not so at womankind. It
is she who wishes to go with him at once; and who says as thou, that she
is still his wife: but it is he who will not. He says that she hath for
ten years borne a name other than his; that in her own country she hath
been ten years mourned for as dead; that he hath by process of law, on
account of her death, inherited and sold all the estate that she did
own."

"Rich, was she rich!" interrupted Dr. Macgowan. "Well, 'pon my word,
it's the most extraordinary thing I ever did hear of: never could have
happened in England, sir, never!"

"I know not if it were a large estate," continued Father Antoine, "it
would be no difference: if it had been millions she would have left it
and come away. She was full of renunciation. Ah! but she must be beloved
of the Virgin."

"So you are really going to marry them over again, are you?" broke in
the impatient doctor.

"I have said that I would," replied Father Antoine, "and it is great joy
to me: neither should it seem strange to you. Your church doth not
recognize the sacrament of baptism, when it has been performed by
unconsecrated hands of dissenters: you do rebaptize all converts from
those sects. So our church does not recognize the sacrament of marriage,
when performed by any one outside of its own priesthood. I shall with
true gladness of heart administer the holy sacrament of marriage to
these two so strangely separated, and so strangely brought together.
They have borne ten years of penance for whatever of sin had gone
before