She said nothing, but she was quietly pleased, and a rare, sweet smile softened her marble features. She asked no questions about what had passed, being quite sure that all was well, and that if there had ever been anything to fear, it was gone.
The prelate and Giovanni walked along the quiet street in silence for some distance; then Severi stopped suddenly, as many Italians do when they are going to say something important.
'You will help me, I am sure,' he said, speaking impetuously from the first. 'Though I never knew you well in old times, I always felt that you were friendly. You will not allow her to ruin both our lives, will you?'
'What sort of help do you want from me?' asked the tall churchman, bending his eyes to the energetic young face.
'The simplest thing in the world!' Giovanni answered. 'We were engaged to be married when I left with that ill-fated expedition. She thought me dead. She must be released from her vows at once! That is all.'
'It is out of the question,' answered Monsignor Saracinesca, with supernal calm.
'Out of the question?' Giovanni frowned angrily. 'Do you mean that it cannot be done? But it is only common justice! She is as much my wife as if you had married us and I had left her at the altar to go to Africa! You cannot be in earnest!'
'I am. In the first place, there is no ground for granting a dispensation.'
'No ground?' cried Severi indignantly. 'We loved each other, we meant to marry! Is that no reason?'
'No. You were not even formally betrothed, either before your parish priest or the mayor. Without a solemn promise in the proper form and before witnesses, there is no binding engagement to marry. That is not only canonical law, but Italian common law, too.'
'We had told each other,' Giovanni objected. 'That was enough.'
'You are wrong,' answered Monsignor Saracinesca gently. 'The Church will do nothing that the law would not do, and the law would not release Sister Giovanna, or any one else, from a legal obligation taken under the same circumstances as the religious one she has assumed.'
'This. If, instead of becoming a nun, Angela had married another man after you were lost, Italian law would not annul the marriage in order that she might become your wife.'