human
What's that you say, Monsignor? he cried in a shrill voice.
gpt
I'm not used to this kind of language from my clergy, Father Donovan,
human
Perhaps not, Monsignor. But you've got to hear for once, and that's now. When this man [pointing to Daniel O'Neill] for his own purposes wanted to marry his daughter (who was a child and had no choice in the matter) to one of another faith, a man who didn't believe in the sacrament of marriage as we know it, who was it that paved the way for him?
gpt
You actually mean that _I_. . . .
human
I mean that without your help, Monsignor, a good girl could never have been married to a bad man. You didn't act in ignorance, either. When somebody told you--somebody who is here now--that the man to whom you were going to marry that innocent girl was a notorious loose liver, a profligate, a reprobate, a betrayer of women, and a damned scoundrel. . . .
gpt
Go on, Father Dan; that's God's own name for him,
human
Let's have an end of this,
gpt
Wait a bit, sir,
human
That's how you made _me_ a party to this wicked marriage, God and his Holy Mother pardon me! And now that it has come to the end you might have expected, and the poor helpless child who was bought and sold like a slave is in the position of the sinner, you want me to cut her off, to turn the hearts of all good people against her, to cast her out of communion, to make her a thing to point the finger at--me, her spiritual father who baptized her, taking her out of the arms of the angel who bore her and giving her to Christ--or if I won't you'll deprive me of my living, you'll report me to Rome, you'll unfrock me. . . .
gpt
Do it, Monsignor, cried Father Dan, taking a step nearer to the Bishop and lifting a trembling hand over his head.
human
Do it, if our holy Church will permit you, and I'll put a wallet on my old shoulders and go round the houses of my parish in my old age, begging a bite of bread and a basin of meal, and sleeping under a thorn bush, rather than lay my head on my pillow and know that that poor victim of your wicked scheming is in the road.