She had no time to think. She was ushered into
the room where he was, with the confusing fact of his presence fresh upon
her. She had had but a word or two with the priest, but enough for him to
know what she meant to do, and that it must be done at once.
Varley advanced to meet her. She shuddered inwardly to think what a
difference there was between the fallen creature she had left behind in
the hospital and this tall, dark, self-contained man, whose name was
familiar in the surgeries of Europe, who had climbed from being the son
of a clockmaker to his present distinguished place.
"Have you come for absolution, also?" he asked with a smile; "or is it to
get a bill of excommunication against your only enemy--there couldn't be
more than one?"
Cheerful as his words were, he was shrewdly observing her, for her
paleness, and the strange light in her eyes, gave him a sense of anxiety.
He wondered what trouble was on her.
"Excommunication?" he repeated.
The unintended truth went home. She winced, even as she responded with
that quaint note in her voice which gave humour to her speech. "Yes,
excommunication," she replied; "but why an enemy? Do we not need to
excommunicate our friends sometimes?"
"That is a hard saying," he answered soberly.
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