Stella looked at him, suspecting some underhand exercise of influence on her husband.

If she had been able to estimate the noble qualities in the nature of Penrose, she might have done him the justice to arrive at a truer conclusion.  It was he who had asked leave (when Stella had interrupted them) to take the opportunity of speaking alone with Mrs. Romayne.  He had said to his friend, “If I am wrong in my anticipation of the effect of your change of religion on your wife, let me find it out from herself.  My one object is to act justly toward you and toward her.  I should never forgive myself if I made mischief between you, no matter how innocent of any evil intention I might be.”  Romayne had understood him.  It was Stella’s misfortune ignorantly to misinterpret everything that Penrose said or did, for the all-sufficient reason that he was a Catholic priest.  She had drawn the conclusion that her husband had deliberately left her alone with Penrose, to be persuaded or deluded into giving her sanction to aid the influence of the priest.  “They shall find they are mistaken,” she thought to herself.

“Have I interrupted an interesting conversation?” she inquired abruptly.  “When I asked you to come out, were you talking to my husband about his historical work?”

“No, Mrs. Romayne; we were not speaking at that time of the book.”

“May I ask an odd question, Mr. Penrose?”

“Certainly!”

“Are you a very zealous Catholic?”

“Pardon me.  I am a priest.  Surely my profession speaks for me?”

“I hope you are not trying to convert my husband?”

Penrose stopped and looked at her attentively.

“Are you strongly opposed to your husband’s conversion?” he asked.

“As strongly,” she answered, “as a woman can be.”

“By religious conviction, Mrs. Romayne?”

“No.  By experience.”

Penrose started.  “Is it indiscreet,” he said gently, “to inquire what your experience may have been?”

“I will tell you what my experience has been,” Stella replied.  “I am ignorant of theological subtleties, and questions of doctrine are quite beyond me.  But this I do know.  A well-meaning and zealous Catholic shortened my father’s life, and separated me from an only sister whom I dearly loved.  I see I shock you—­and I daresay you think I am exaggerating?”

“I hear what you say, Mrs. Romayne, with very great pain—­I don’t presume to form any opinion thus far.”

“My sad story can be told in a few words,” Stella proceeded.  “When my elder sister was still a young girl, an aunt of ours (my mother’s sister) came to stay with us.  She had married abroad, and she was, as I have said, a zealous Catholic.  Unknown to the rest of us, she held conversations on religion with my sister—­worked on the enthusiasm which was part of the girl’s nature—­and accomplished her conversion.  Other influences, of which I know nothing, were afterward brought to