"No. I just want to know if you're going to keep asking questions. It helps me to decide what to tell you next. Anyway--she could have refused me. I think. In theory, anyway."

And now he leaned on the altar too, propping one foot up, looking off at the walls a little distantly, a little wistfully.

"But I don't think she ever considered that at all. It wasn't even possible, so far as she was concerned. Things were set and settled in her mind. Oh well. It was what it was. And it was a very long courtship on my part, I know that much. One might almost think of it as an arranged marriage. It's a shame it didn't work out."

More of a shame that his son was never born--though some would say that was a mercy, divine mercy.

He turned his gaze back to her.

"Now. If you do manage to escape, you've a new story to tell your suitor. He won't know that one. And I suspect he'll be curious about it."