to hear them repeated now. As matters stand, am I married past all help?”
“You are as legally and as firmly bound,” said the priest, “as though it had been done in a cathedral, in the presence of thousands. The additional observances I referred to are not necessary to the strictest legality of the act, but were advised as a precaution for the future—for convenience of proof in such contingenices as wills, inheritances and the like.”
Lorison laughed harshly.
“Many thanks,” he said. “Then there is no mistake, and I am the happy benedict. I suppose I should go stand upon the bridal corner, and when my wife gets through walking the streets she will look me up.”
Father Rogan regarded him calmly.
“My son,” he said, “when a man and woman come to me to be married I always marry them. I do this for the sake of other people whom they might go away and marry if they did not marry each other. As you see, I do not seek your confidence; but your case seems to me to be one not altogether devoid of interest. Very few marriages that have come to my notice have brought such well-expressed regret within so short a time. I will hazard one question: were you not under the impression that you loved the lady you married, at the time you did so?”
“Loved her!” cried Lorison, wildly. “Never so well as now, though she told me she deceived and sinned and stole. Never more than now, when, perhaps, she is
