"
And then I slipped upstairs to my room, and replied to Father Dan.
Never had I written such a letter before. I poured my whole heart on to
the paper, saying what marriage meant to me, as the Pope himself had
explained it, a sacrament implying and requiring love as the very soul
of it, and since I did not feel this love for the man I was about to
marry, and had no grounds for thinking he felt it for me, and being sure
that other reasons had operated to bring us together, I begged Father
Dan, by his memory of my mother, and his affection for me, and his
desire to see me good and happy, to intervene with my father and the
Bishop, even at this late hour, and at the church door itself to stop
the ceremony.
It was late before I finished, and I thought the household was asleep,
but just as I was coming to an end I heard my father moving in the room
below, and then a sudden impulse came to me, and with a new thought I
went downstairs and knocked at his door.
"Who's there?" he cried. "Come in."
He was sitting in his shirt sleeves, shaving before a looking-glass
which was propped up against two ledgers.
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