“But, you know, Harding, I have suspected this abomination; the taint was in her blood.  You know those Papists, Harding, how they cringe, how shamefaced they are, how low in intelligence.  I have heard you say yourself they have not written a book for the last four hundred years.  Now, why do you defend them?”

“Defend them, Asher?  I am not defending them.”

“Paralysed brains, arrested intelligences.”  He stopped, choked, unable to articulate for his haste.  “That brute, Monsignor Mostyn—­ at all events I can see him, and kick the vile brute.”  And taken in another gust of passion, Owen went towards the door.  “Yes, I can have it out with him.”

“But, Asher, he is an old man; to lay hands upon him would be ruin.”

“What do I care about ruin?  I am ruined.  They have got her, and her mind will be poisoned.  She will get the abominable ascetic mind.  The pleasure of the flesh transferred!  What is legitimate and beautiful in the body put into the mind, the mind sullied by passions that do not belong to the mind.  That is what papistry is!  They will poison that pure, beautiful woman’s mind.  That priest has put them up to it, and he shall pay for it if I can get at him to-night!” Owen broke away suddenly, leaving Harding and Merat in the dining-room, Harding regretting that he had accepted Owen’s invitation to dinner...  If Asher and Monsignor were to meet that night?  Good Lord! ...  Owen would strike him for sure, and a blow would kill the old man.

“Merat, this is very unfortunate....  Not to be able to control one’s temper.  You have known him a long time....  I hope nothing will happen.  Perhaps you had better wait.”

“No, Mr. Harding, I can’t wait; I must go back to mademoiselle.”  And the two went out together, Harding turning to the right, jumping into a cab as soon as he could hail one, and Merat getting into another in order to be in time to save her mistress from her madman lover.

XVI

Three hours after Harding and Merat had left Berkeley Square, Owen let himself in with his latch-key.  He was very pale and very weary, and his boots and trousers were covered with mud, for he had been splashing through wet streets, caring very little where he went.  At first he had gone in the direction of the river, thinking to rouse up Monsignor, and to tell him what he thought of him, perhaps to give him a good thrashing; but the madness of his anger began to die long before reaching the river.  In the middle of St. James’s Park the hopelessness of any effort on his part to restrain Evelyn became clear to him suddenly, and he uttered a cry, walking on again, and on again, not caring whither he walked, splashing on through the wet, knowing well that nothing could be done, that the inevitable had happened.

“It would have been better if she had died,” he often said; “it would have been much better if she had died, for then I should be free, and she would be free.  Now neither is free.”