know nothing, say so
frankly. That will not wound me, since I am the first to declare that I
know nothing of it. What do you wish?"

She felt his irritation increase, and yet she could not decide to say
what she wished.

"I have begun badly," she said. "I should have told you at first that you
will always find in me a wife who will respect your ideas and beliefs,
who will never permit herself to judge you, and still less to seek to
contend with them or to modify them. That you feel, do you not, is
neither a part of my nature nor of my love?"

"Conclude!" he said impatiently.

"I think, then," she said with timid hesitation, "that you will not say
that I fail in respect to your ideas in asking that our marriage take
place in church."

"But that was my intention."

"Truly!" she exclaimed. "O dearest! And I feared to offend you!"

"Why should you think it would offend me?" he asked, smiling.

"You consent to go to confession?"

Instantly the smile in his eyes and on his lips was replaced by a gleam
of fury.

"And why should I not go to confession?" he demanded.

"But--"

"Do you suppose that I can be afraid to confess? Why do you suppose that?
Tell me why?"

He looked at her with eyes that pierced to her heart, as if they would
read her inmost thoughts.

Stupefied by this access of fury, which burst forth without any warning,
since he had smilingly replied to her request for a religious marriage,
she could find nothing to say, not understanding how the simple word
"confess" could so exasperate him. And yet she could not deceive herself:
is was indeed this word and no other that put him in this state.

He continued to look at her, and wishing to explain herself, she said: "I
supposed only one thing, and that is that I might offend you by asking
you to do what is contrary to your beliefs."

The mad anger that carried him away so stupidly began to lose its first
violence; another word added to what had already escaped him would be an
avowal.

"Do not let us talk of it anymore," he said. "Above all, do not let us
think of it."

"Permit me to say one word," she replied. "Had I been situated like other
people I would have asked nothing; my will is yours. But for you, for
your future and your honor, you should not appear to marry in secret, as
if ashamed, with a pariah."

"Be easy. I feel as you do, more than you, the necessity of consecrated
ceremonies for us."

She understood that on this path he wou