She was silent. She knew as little as her father of Roman Catholic
history and creeds.

He went on:

'Your aunt, my dear sister--a more beautiful creature never walked
this earth--I do not know if she is alive or dead. Can that be true
which kills love?'

'Father, father,' she cried, sobbing, 'nothing can separate us!'

He said no more on that subject, and seemed to recover his peace of
mind, although he was not really at rest. He was getting into years
and he saw that words were useless and that he must wait the issue
of forces which were beyond his control. 'If she is to go, she must
go: resistance will make it worse for me: I must thank God if
anything of her is left for me. Thus spoke the weary submission of
age, but it was not final, and the half-savage desire for his
child's undivided love awoke in him again, and he prayed that if he
could not have it his end might soon come.

Kate's love for her father was deep, but she could not move a single
step merely to pacify him. She could have yielded herself entirely
to him in worldly matters; she would have doubted many of her
strongest beliefs if he had contested them; she would have given up
all her happiness for him; she would have died for him; but she
could not let go the faintest of her religious dreams, although it
was impossible to put them into words.

She wrote her letter to the priest. She found him living in a