The Woman Thou Gavest Me; Being the Story of Mary O'Neill

Next day Lady Margaret came to my room to say good-bye, telling me she had only stayed at Castle Raa to keep house and make ready for me, and must now return to her own home, which was in London.

I was sorry, for my heart had warmed to her, and when I stood at the door and saw her drive off with my husband to catch the afternoon steamer, I felt I had lost both sympathy and protection.

Alma's feelings were less troubled, and as we turned back into the house I could see that she was saying to herself:

"Thank goodness, she's gone away."

A day or two later Doctor Conrad came, according to my father's instructions, and I was glad to see his close-cropped iron-grey head coming up the stairs towards my room.

Naturally our first conversation was about Martin, who had written to tell his parents of our meeting in London and to announce his intended visit. It was all very exciting, and now his mother was working morning and night at the old cottage, to prepare for the arrival of her son. Such scrubbing and scouring! Such taking up of carpets and laying them down again, as if the darling old thing were expecting a prince!

"It ought to be Sunny Lodge indeed before she's done with it," said the Doctor.

"I'm sure it will," I said. "It always was, and it always will be."

"And how are we ourselves," said the doctor. "A little below par, eh? Any sickness? No? Nausea? No? Headache and a feeling of lassitude, then? No?"

After other questions and tests, the old doctor was looking puzzled, when, not finding it in my heart to keep him in the dark any longer, I told him there was nothing amiss with my health, but I was unhappy and had been so since the time of my marriage.

"I see," he said. "It's your mind and not your body that is sick?"

"Yes."

"I'll speak to Father Dan," he said. "Good-bye! God bless you!"

Less than half an hour after he had gone, Alma came to me in her softest mode, saying the doctor had said I was suffering from extreme nervous exhaustion and ought to be kept from worries and anxieties of every kind.

"So if there's anything I can do while I'm here, dearest, . . . such as looking after the house and the servants. . . . No, no, don't deny me; it will be a pleasure, I assure you. . . . So we'll say that's settled, shall we? . . . You dear, sweet darling creature!"

I was too much out of heart to care what happened, but inside two days I realised that Alma had taken possession of the house, and was ordering and controlling everything.

Apparently this pleased such of the servants as had anything to gain by it—the housekeeper in particular—for Alma was no skinflint and she was making my husband's money flow like water, but it was less agreeable to my maid, who said:

"This is a nice place to be sure, where the mistress takes no interest in anything, and the guest walks over everybody. She'll walk over the mistress herself before long—mark my word but she will."

It would be about a week after our arrival at Castle Raa that Price came to my room to say that a priest was asking for me, and he was such a strange-looking thing that she was puzzled to know if his face was that of a child, a woman or a dear old man.

I knew in a moment it must be Father Dan, so I went flying downstairs and found him in the hall, wearing the same sack coat (or so it seemed) as when I was a child and made cupboards of its vertical pockets, carrying the same funny little bag which he had taken to Rome and used for his surplice at funerals, and mopping his forehead and flicking his boots with a red print handkerchief, for the day was hot and the roads were dusty.

He was as glad to see me as I to see him, and when I asked if he would have tea, he said Yes, for he had walked all the way from the Presbytery, after fasting the day before; and when I asked if he would not stay overnight he said Yes to that, too, "if it would not be troublesome and inconvenient."

So I took his bag and gave it to a maid, telling her to take it to the guest's room on my landing, and to bring tea to my boudoir immediately.

But hardly had I taken him upstairs and we had got seated in my private room, when the maid knocked at the door to say that the housekeeper wished to speak with me, and on going out, and closing the door behind me, I found her on the landing, a prim little flinty person with quick eyes, thin lips and an upward lift of her head.

"Sorry, my lady, but it won't be convenient for his reverence to stay in the house to-night," she said.

"Why so?" I said.

"Because Madame has ordered all the rooms to be got ready for the house-party, and this one," (pointing to the guest's room opposite) "is prepared for Mr. and Mrs. Eastcliff, and we don't know how soon they may arrive."

I felt myself flushing up to the eyes at the woman's impudence, and it added to my anger that Alma herself was standing at the head of the stairs, looking on and listening. So with a little spurt of injured pride I turned severely on the one while really speaking to the other, and said:

"Be good enough to make this room ready for his reverence without one moment's delay, and please remember for the future, that I am mistress in this house, and your duty is to obey me and nobody else whatever."

As I said this and turned back to my boudoir, I saw that Alma's deep eyes had a sullen look, and I felt that she meant to square accounts with me some day; but what she did was done at once, for going downstairs (as I afterwards heard from Price) she met my husband in the hall, where, woman-like, she opened her battery upon him at his weakest spot, saying:

"Oh, I didn't know your wife was priest-ridden."

"Priest-ridden?"

"Precisely," and then followed an explanation of what had happened, with astonishing embellishments which made my husband pale with fury.

Meantime I was alone with Father Dan in my room, and while I poured out his tea and served him with bread and butter, he talked first about Martin (as everybody seemed to do when speaking to me), saying:

"He was always my golden-headed boy, and it's a mighty proud man I am entirely to hear the good news of him."

More of the same kind there was, all music to my ears, and then Father Dan came to closer quarters, saying Doctor Conrad had dropped a hint that I was not very happy.

"Tell your old priest everything, my child, and if there is anything he can do. . . ."

Without waiting for more words I sank to my knees at his feet, and poured out all my troubles—telling him my marriage had been a failure; that the sanctifying grace which he had foretold as the result of the sacrament of holy wedlock had not come to pass; that not only did I not love my husband, but my husband loved another woman, who was living here with us in this very house.

Father Dan was dreadfully distressed. More than once while I was speaking he crossed himself and said, "Lord and His Holy Mother love us;" and when I came to an end he began to reproach himself for everything, saying that he ought to have known that our lad (meaning Martin) did not write those terrible letters without being certain they were true, and that from the first day my husband came to our parish the sun had been darkened by his shadow.

"But take care," he said. "I've told nobody about the compact we made with your husband—nobody but our Blessed Lady herself—and you mustn't think of that as a way out of your marriage. No, nor of any other way, no matter what, which the world, and the children of the world, may talk about."

"But I can't bear it, I can't bear it," I cried.

"Hush! Hush! Don't say that, my daughter. Think of it as one of the misfortunes of life which we all have to suffer. How many poor women have to bear the sickness and poverty, not to speak of the drunkenness and death, of their husbands! Do they think they have a right to run away from all that—to break the sacred vows of their marriage on account of it? No, my child, no, and neither must you. Some day it will all come right. You'll see it will. And meantime by the memory of your mother—that blessed saint whom the Lord has made one of his own. . . ."

"Then what can I do?"

"Pray, my child, pray for strength to bear your trials and to resist all temptation. Say a rosary for the Blessed Virgin every morning before breaking your fast. I'll say a rosary, too. You'll see yet this is only God's love for you, and you'll welcome His holy will."

While my dear father and friend was counselling me so I heard my husband speaking in his loud, grating tones on the landing outside, and before I could rise from my knees he had burst open the door and entered the room.

His face was deadly white and he was like a man out of his right mind.

"Mary," he said, looking down at me where I knelt with my hands crossed on my bosom, "when did I give you permission to introduce a priest into my house? Isn't it enough for a man to have a wife who is a Catholic without having the church and its ministers shunted into his home without his permission?"

I was so taken aback by this furious assault that at first I could not speak, but Father Dan interposed to defend me, saying with beautiful patience, that his visit had been quite unexpected on my part, and that I had asked him to stay overnight only because he was an old man, and had had a long walk from his parish.

"I'm much obliged to your reverence," said my husband, who was quivering with fury, "but my wife is perfectly capable of answering for herself without your assistance, and as for your parish you would have done better to stay there instead of coming to meddle in this one."

"Aren't you measuring me by your own yard, sir?" said Father Dan, and at that straight thrust my husband broke into ungovernable rage.

"Everybody knows what a Popish priest is," he said. "A meddlesome busybody who pokes his nose into other men's secrets. But priest or no priest, I'll have no man coming to my house to make mischief between husband and wife."

"Are you sure," said Father Dan, "that some woman isn't in your house already, making mischief between wife and husband?"

That thrust too went home. My husband looked at me with flashing eyes and then said:

"As I thought! You've been sent for to help my wife to make a great to-do of her imaginary grievances. You're to stay in the house too, and before long we'll have you setting up as master here and giving orders to my servants! But not if I know it! . . . Your reverence, if you have any respect for your penitent, you'll please be good enough to leave my wife to my protection."

I saw that Father Dan had to gulp down his gathering anger, but he only said:

"Say no more, my lord. No true priest ever comes between a man and the wife whom God has given him. It's his business to unite people, not to put them apart. As for this dear child, I have loved her since she was an infant in arms, and never so much as at the present speaking, so I don't need to learn my duty from one who appears to care no more for her than for the rind of a lemon. I'll go, sir," said the old man, drawing himself up like a wounded lion, "but it's not to your protection I leave her—it's to that of God's blessed and holy love and will."

My husband had gone before the last words were spoken, but I think they must have followed him as he went lunging down the stairs.

During this humiliating scene a hot flush of shame had come to my cheeks and I wanted to tell Father Dan not to let it grieve him, but I could do nothing but stoop and kiss his hand.

Meantime two or three of the servants had gathered on the landing at the sound of my husband's voice, and among them was the flinty housekeeper holding the Father's little bag, and she gave it back to him as he passed her.

Then, all being over, the woman came into my room, with an expression of victorious mischief in her eyes and said:

"Your ladyship had better have listened to them as knows, you see."

I was too benumbed by that cruel stroke to reply, but Price said enough for both of us.

"If them as knows," she said, "don't get out of this room inside two seconds they'll get their ugly faces slapped."

I thought I had reached the end of my power of endurance, and that night, before going to bed, while my maid was taking down my hair, and I was thinking of Martin and asking myself if I should put up with my husband's brutalities any longer, I heard her say:

"If I were a lady married to the wrong man, I'd have the right one if I had to go through the divorce court for him."

Now that was so exactly the thought that was running riot in my own tormented mind, that I flew at her like a wild cat, asking her how she dared to say anything so abominably wicked, and telling her to take her notice there and then.

But hardly had she left the room, when my heart was in my mouth again, and I was trembling with fear lest she should take me at my word and then the last of my friends would be gone.

Within the next few days the house-party arrived. There would be twenty of them at least, not counting valets and ladies' maids, so that large as Castle Raa was the house was full.

They were about equally divided as to sex and belonged chiefly to my husband's class, but they included Mr. Eastcliff's beautiful wife, Camilla, and Alma's mother, who, much to Alma's chagrin, had insisted upon being invited.

My husband required me to receive them, and I did so, though I was only their nominal hostess, and they knew it and treated me accordingly.

I should be ashamed to speak of the petty slights they put upon me, how they consulted Alma in my presence and otherwise wounded my pride as a woman by showing me that I had lost my own place in my husband's house.

I know there are people of the same class who are kind and considerate, guileless and pure, the true nobility of their country—women who are devoted to their homes and children, and men who spend their wealth and strength for the public good—but my husband's friends were not of that kind.

They were vain and proud, selfish, self-indulgent, thoroughly insincere, utterly ill-mannered, shockingly ill-informed, astonishingly ill-educated (capable of speaking several languages but incapable of saying a sensible word in any of them), living and flourishing in the world without religion, without morality, and (if it is not a cant phrase to use) without God.

What their conduct was when out shooting, picnicking, driving, riding, motoring, and yachting (for Mr. Eastcliff had arrived in his yacht, which was lying at anchor in the port below the glen), I do not know, for "doctor's orders" were Alma's excuse for not asking me to accompany them.

But at night they played bridge (their most innocent amusement), gambled and drank, banged the piano, danced "Grizzly Bears," sang duets from the latest musical comedies, and then ransacked the empty houses of their idle heads for other means of killing the one enemy of their existence—Time.

Sometimes they would give entertainments in honour of their dogs, when all the animals of all the guests (there seemed to be a whole kennel of them) would be dressed up in coats of silk and satin with pockets and pocket-handkerchiefs, and then led downstairs to the drawing-room, where Alma's wheezy spaniel and my husband's peevish terrier were supposed to receive them.

Sometimes they would give "freak dinners," when the guests themselves would be dressed up, the men in women's clothes, the women in men's, the male imitating the piping treble of the female voices, and the female the over-vowelled slang of the male, until, tiring of this foolishness, they would end up by flinging the food at the pictures on the walls, the usual pellet being softened bread and the favourite target the noses in the family portraits, which, hit and covered with a sprawling mess, looked so ridiculous as to provoke screams of laughter.

The talk at table was generally of horses and dogs, but sometimes it was of love, courtship and marriage, including conjugal fidelity, which was a favourite subject of ridicule, with both the women and the men.

Thus my husband would begin by saying (he often said it in my hearing) that once upon a time men took their wives as they took their horses, on trial for a year and a day, and "really with some women there was something to say for the old custom."

Then Mr. Vivian would remark that it was "a jolly good idea, by Jove," and if he "ever married, by the Lord that's just what he would do."

Then Mr. Eastcliff would say that it was a ridiculous superstition that a woman should have her husband all to herself, "as if he were a kind of toothbrush which she could not share with anybody else," and somebody would add that she might as reasonably want her dentist or her hairdresser to be kept for her own use only.

After that the ladies, not to be left behind, would join in the off-hand rattle, and one of them would give it as her opinion that a wife might have an incorrigibly unfaithful husband, and yet be well off.

"Ugh!" said Alma one night, shrugging her shoulders. "Think of a poor woman being tied for life to an entirely faithful husband!"

"I adore the kind of man who goes to the deuce for a woman—Parnell, and Gambetta and Boulanger and that sort," said a "smart" girl of three or four-and-twenty, whereupon Camilla Eastcliff (she was a Russian) cried:

"That's vhy the co-respondents in your divorce courts are so sharming. They're like the villayns in the plays—always so dee-lightfully vicked."

Oh, the sickening horror of it all! Whether it was really moral corruption or only affectation and pose, it seemed equally shocking, and though I bore as much of it as I could with a cheerful face, I escaped as often as possible to the clean atmosphere of my own room.

But even there I was not always allowed to be alone, for Alma's mother frequently followed me. She was a plump little person in a profuse ornamentation of diamond rings and brooches, with little or no education, and a reputation for saying risky things in blundering French whereof the principal humour lay in the uncertainty as to whether she knew their meaning or not.

Nevertheless she was the only good-hearted woman in the house, and I really believe she thought she was doing a kind act in keeping me company. But oh, how I suffered from her long accounts of her former "visits" to my house, whereby I learned, without wishing to, what her origin had been (the daughter of a London postman); what position she had held in Castle Raa in her winsome and reckless youth (one that need not be defined); how she had met her husband in New York and he had married her to save the reputation of his child; and finally how the American ladies of society had refused to receive her, and she had vowed to be revenged on them by marrying Alma to the highest title in Europe that could be bought with money.

"I was just like your father, my dear. I never did no manner of harm to those people. They used to think I thought myself better blood nor they were, but I never thought no such thing, I assure you. Only when they turned nasty after my marriage I made up my mind—just as your father did—as Alma should marry a bigger husband nor any of them, even if he wasn't worth a dime and 'adn't a 'air on 'is 'ead."

But even these revelations about herself were less humiliating than her sympathy with me, which implied that I was not fitted to be mistress of a noble house—how could it be expected of me?—whereas Alma was just as if she had been born to it, and therefore it was lucky for me that I had her there to show me how to do things.

"Alma's gotten such ton! Such distangy manners!" she would say.

The effect of all this was to make me feel, as I had never felt before, the intolerable nature of the yoke I was living under. When I looked into the future and saw nothing before me but years of this ignoble bondage, I told myself that nothing—no sacrament or contract, no law of church or state—could make me endure it.

From day to day my maid came to me with insidious hints about Alma and my husband. I found myself listening to them. I also found myself refreshing my memory of the hideous scene in Paris, and wondering why I had condoned the offence by staying an hour longer under my husband's protection.

And then there was always another force at work within me—my own secret passion. Though sometimes I felt myself to be a wretched sinner and thought the burden I had to bear was heaven's punishment for my guilty love, at other times my whole soul rose in revolt, and I cried out not merely for separation from my husband but for absolute sundering.

Twice during the painful period of the house-party I heard from Martin. His first letter was full of accounts of the far-reaching work of his expedition—the engaging of engineers, electricians, geologists and masons, and the shipping of great stores of wireless apparatus—for his spirits seemed to be high, and life was full of good things for him.

His second letter told me that everything was finished, and he was to visit the island the next week, going first to "the old folks" and coming to me for a few days immediately before setting sail.

That brought matters to a head, and compelled me to take action.

It may have been weak of me, but not wanting a repetition of the scene with Father Dan, (knowing well that Martin would not bear it with the same patience) I sent the second letter to Alma, asking if the arrangement would be agreeable. She returned it with the endorsement (scribbled in pencil across the face), "Certainly; anything to please you, dear."

I submitted even to that. Perhaps I was a poor-spirited thing, wanting in proper pride, but I had a feeling that it was not worth while to waste myself in little squibs of temper, because an eruption was coming (I was sure of that) in which Martin would be concerned on my side, and then everybody and everything would be swept out of the path of my life for ever.

Martin came. In due course I read in the insular newspapers of his arrival on the island—how the people had turned out in crowds to cheer him at the pier, and how, on reaching our own village the neighbours (I knew the names of all of them) had met him at the railway station and taken him to his mother's house, and then lighted fires on the mountains for his welcome home.

It cut me to the heart's core to think of Martin amid thrilling scenes like those while I was here among degrading scenes like these. My love for Martin was now like a wound and I resolved that, come what might, before he reached Castle Raa I should liberate myself from the thraldom of my false position.

Father Dan's counsels had faded away by this time. Though I had prayed for strength to bear my burden there had been no result, and one morning, standing before the figure of the Virgin in my bedroom, I felt an impulse to blow out her lamp and never to light it again.

The end of it all was that I determined to see the Bishop and my father's advocate, Mr. Curphy, and perhaps my father himself, that I might know one way or the other where I was, and what was to become of me. But how to do this I could not see, having a houseful of people who were nominally my guests.

Fortune—ill-fortune—favoured me. News came that my father had suddenly fallen ill of some ailment that puzzled the doctors, and making this my reason and excuse I spoke to my husband, asking if I might go home for two or three days.

"Why not?" he said, in the tone of one who meant, "Who's keeping you?"

Then in my weakness I spoke to Alma, who answered:

"Certainly, my sweet girl. We shall miss you dreadfully, but it's your duty. And then you'll see that dear Mr. . . . What d'ye callum?"

Finally, feeling myself a poor, pitiful hypocrite, I apologised for my going away to the guests also, and they looked as if they might say: "We'll survive it, perhaps."

The night before my departure my maid said:

"Perhaps your ladyship has forgotten that my time's up, but I'll stay until you return if you want me to."

I asked her if she would like to stay with me altogether and she said:

"Indeed I should, my lady. Any woman would like to stay with a good mistress, if she is a little quick sometimes. And if you don't want me to go to your father's I may be of some use to you here before you come back again."

I saw that her mind was still running on divorce, but I did not reprove her now, for mine was turning in the same direction.

Next morning most of the guests came to the hail door to see me off, and they gave me a shower of indulgent smiles as the motor-car moved away.

Before going to my father's house I went to the Bishop's. Bishop's Court is at the other side of the island, and it was noon before I drove under its tall elm trees, in which a vast concourse of crows seemed to be holding a sort of general congress.

The Bishop was then at his luncheon, and after luncheon (so his liveried servant told me) he usually took a siesta. I have always thought it was unfortunate for my interview that it came between his food and his sleep.

The little reception-room into which I was shown was luxuriously, not to say gorgeously, appointed, with easy chairs and sofas, a large portrait of the Pope, signed by the Holy Father himself, and a number of pictures of great people of all kinds—dukes, marquises, lords, counts—as well as photographs of fashionable ladies in low dress inscribed in several languages to "My dear Father in God the Lord Bishop of Ellan."

The Bishop came to me after a few minutes, smiling and apparently at peace with all the world. Except that he wore a biretta he was dressed—as in Rome—in his long black soutane with its innumerable buttons, his silver-buckled shoes, his heavy gold chain and jewelled cross.

He welcomed me in his smooth and suave manner, asking if he could offer me a little refreshment; but, too full of my mission to think of eating and drinking, I plunged immediately into the object of my visit.

"Monsignor," I said, "I am in great trouble. It is about my marriage."

The smile was smitten away from the Bishop's face by this announcement.

"I am sorry," he said. "Nothing serious, I trust?"

I told him it was very serious, and straightway I began on the spiritual part of my grievance—that my husband did not love me, that he loved another woman, that the sacred sacrament of my marriage. . . .

"Wait," said the Bishop, and he rose to close the window, for the clamour of the crows was deafening—a trial must have been going on in the trees. Returning to his seat he said:

"Dear lady, you must understand that there is one offence, and only one, which in all Christian countries and civilised communities is considered sufficient to constitute a real and tangible grievance. Have you any evidence of that?"

I knew what he meant and I felt myself colouring to the roots of my hair. But gulping down my shame I recounted the story of the scene in Paris and gave a report of my maid's charges and surmises.

"Humph!" said the Bishop, and I saw in a moment that he was going to belittle my proofs.

"Little or no evidence of your own, apparently. Chiefly that of your maid. And ladies' maids are notorious mischief-makers."

"But it's true," I said. "My husband will not deny it. He cannot."

"So far as I am able to observe what passes in the world," said the Bishop, "men in such circumstances always can and do deny it."

I felt my hands growing moist under my gloves. I thought the Bishop was trying to be blind to what he did not wish to see.

"But I'm right, I'm sure I'm right," I said.

"Well, assuming you are right, what is it, dear lady, that you wish me to do?"

For some minutes I felt like a fool, but I stammered out at length that I had come for his direction and to learn what relief the Church could give me.

"H'm!" said the Bishop, and then crossing one leg over the other, and fumbling the silver buckle of his shoe, he said:

"The Church, dear lady, does indeed provide alleviation in cases of dire necessity. It provides the relief of separation—always deploring the necessity and hoping for ultimate reconciliation. But to sanction the separation of a wife from her husband because—pardon me, I do not say this is your case—she finds that he does not please her, or because—again I do not say this is your case—she fancies that somebody else pleases her better. . . ."

"Monsignor," I said, feeling hot and dizzy, "we need not discuss separation. I am thinking of something much more serious."

Never shall I forget the expression of the Bishop's face. He looked aghast.

"My good lady, surely you are not thinking of divorce?"

I think my head must have dropped as in silent assent, for in a peremptory and condemnatory manner the Bishop took me to task, asking if I did not know that the Catholic Church did not recognise divorce under any circumstances, and if I had forgotten what the Holy Father himself (pointing up to the portrait) had said to me—that when I entered into the solemn contract of holy matrimony I was to do so in the full consciousness that it could not be broken but by death.

"The love in which husband and wife contract to hold each other in holy wedlock is typified by the love of Christ for His Church, and as the one can never be broken, neither can the other."

"But my husband does not love me," I said. "Neither do I love him, and therefore the contract between us is broken already."

The Bishop was very severe with me for this, telling me that as a good child of the Church, I must never, never say that again, for though marriage was a contract it differed from all other contracts whatsoever.

"When you married your husband, dear lady, you were bound to him not by your own act alone, but by a mysterious power from which neither of you can ever free yourself. The power that united you was God, and whom God has joined together no man may put asunder."

I felt my head drooping. The Bishop was saying what I had always been taught, though in the torment of my trouble and the fierce fire of my temptation I had forgotten it.

"The civil law might divorce you," continued the Bishop. "I don't know—I can say nothing about that. But it would have no right to do so because the law can have no right to undo what God Himself has done."

Oh, it was cruel! I felt as if the future of my life were darkening before me—as if the iron bars of a prison were closing upon me, and fetters were being fixed on every limb.

"But even if the civil law could and would divorce you," said the Bishop, "think of the injury you would be inflicting on the Church. Yours was what is called a mixed marriage, and the Church does not favour such marriages, but it consented in this case, and why? Because it hoped to bring back an erring family in a second generation to the fold of the faith. Yet what would you be doing? Without waiting for a second generation you would he defeating its purpose."

A cold chill seemed to creep to my heart at these words. Was it the lost opportunity the Bishop was thinking of, instead of the suffering woman with her bruised and bleeding soul?

I rose to go. The Bishop rose with me, and began to counsel forgiveness.

"Even if you have suffered injury, dear lady," he said—"I don't say you haven't—isn't it possible to forgive? Remember, forgiveness is a divine virtue, enjoined on us all, and especially on a woman towards the man she has married. Only think! How many women have to practise it—every day, all the world over!"

"Ah, well!" I said, and walked to the door.

The Bishop walked with me, urging me, as a good daughter of the Church, to live at peace with my husband, whatever his faults, and when my children came (as please God they would) to "instil into them the true faith with all a mother's art, a mother's tenderness," so that the object of my marriage might be fulfilled, and a good Catholic become the heir to Castle Raa.

"So the Church can do nothing for me?" I said.

"Nothing but pray, dear lady," said the Bishop.

When I left him my heart was in fierce rebellion; and, since the Church could do nothing, I determined to see if the law could do anything, so I ordered my chauffeur to drive to the house of my father's advocate at Holmtown.

The trial in the trees was over by this time, and a dead crow tumbled from one of the tall elms as we passed out of the grounds.

Holmtown is a little city on the face of our bleak west coast, dominated by a broad stretch of sea, and having the sound of the waves always rumbling over it. Mr. Curphy's house faced the shore and his office was an upper room plainly furnished with a writing desk, a deal table, laden with law books and foolscap papers, a stiff arm-chair, covered with American leather, three or four coloured engravings of judges in red and ermine, a photograph of the lawyer himself in wig and gown, an illuminated certificate of his membership of a legal society, and a number of lacquered tin boxes, each inscribed with the name of a client—the largest box bearing the name of "Daniel O'Neill."

My father's advocate received me with his usual bland smile, gave me his clammy fat hand, put me to sit in the arm-chair, hoped my unexpected visit did not presage worse news from the Big house, and finally asked me what he could do.

I told my story over again, omitting my sentimental grievances and coming quickly, and with less delicacy, to the grosser facts of my husband's infidelity.

The lawyer listened with his head aside, his eyes looking out on the sea and his white fingers combing his long brown beard, and before I had finished I could see that he too, like the Bishop, had determined to see nothing.

"You may be right," he began. . . .

"I am right!" I answered.

"But even if you are, I am bound to tell you that adultery is not enough of itself as a ground for divorce."

"Not enough?"

"If you were a man it would be, but being a woman you must establish cruelty as well."

"Cruelty? Isn't it all cruelty?" I asked.

"In the human sense, yes; in the legal sense, no," answered the lawyer.

And then he proceeded to explain to me that in this country, unlike some others, before a woman could obtain a divorce from her husband she had to prove that he had not only been unfaithful to her, but that he had used violence to her, struck her in the face perhaps, threatened her or endangered her life or health.

"Your husband hasn't done that, has he? No? I thought not. After all he's a gentleman. Therefore there is only one other ground on which you could establish a right to divorce, namely desertion, and your husband is not likely to run away. In fact, he couldn't. It isn't to his interest. We've seen to all that—here," and smiling again, the lawyer patted the top of the lacquered box that bore my father's name.

I was dumbfounded. Even more degrading than the fetters whereby the Church bound me to my marriage were the terms on which the law would release me.

"But assuming that you could obtain a divorce," said the lawyer, "what good would it do you? You would have to relinquish your title."

"I care nothing about my title," I replied.

"And your position."

"I care nothing about that either."

"Come, come," said the lawyer, patting my arm as if I had been an angry child on the verge of tears. "Don't let a fit of pique or spleen break up a marriage that is so suitable from the points of property and position. And then think of your good father. Why did he spend all that money in setting a ruined house on its legs again? That he might carry on his name in a noble family, and through your children, and your children's children. . . ."

"Then the law can do nothing for me?" I said, feeling sick and sore.

"Sorry, very sorry, but under present conditions, as far as I can yet see, nothing," said the lawyer.

"Good-day, sir," I said, and before he could have known what I was doing I had leapt up, left the room, and was hurrying downstairs.

My heart was in still fiercer rebellion now. I would go home. I would appeal to my father. Hard as he had always been with me he was at least a man, not a cold abstraction, like the Church and the law, without bowels of compassion or sense of human suffering.

Although I had sent word that I was coming home, there was no one to welcome me when I arrived.

Aunt Bridget was out shopping, and Betsy Beauty (in the sulks with me, as I afterwards heard, for not asking her to the house-party) had run upstairs on hearing our horn, so I went direct to my father's room.

Nessy MacLeod answered my knock, but instead of opening the door to let me in, she slid out like a cat and closed it behind her. Never had her ungainly figure, her irregular features, and her red head seemed to me so repugnant. I saw at once that she was giving herself the airs of housekeeper, and I noticed that she was wearing the bunch of keys which used to dangle from Aunt Bridget's waist when I was a child.

"Your father is ill," she said.

I told her I knew that, and it was one of the reasons I was there.

"Seriously ill," she said, standing with her back to the door. "The doctor says he is to be kept perfectly quiet."

Indignant at the effrontery of the woman who was trying to keep me out of my father's room, I said:

"Let me pass, please."

"S'sh! He has a temperature, and I don't choose that anybody shall disturb him to-day."

"Let me pass," I repeated, and I must have pitched my voice so high that my father heard it.

"Is that Mary?" came from the other side of the door, whereupon Nessy beat a retreat, and at the next moment I was in my father's room.

His massive and powerful head was propped up with pillows in the camp-bed which was all he ever slept on, and he was looking so ill and changed in so short a time that I was shocked, as well as ashamed at the selfishness of having thought only of myself all the morning.

But he would listen to no sympathy, protesting there was little or nothing the matter with him, that "Conrad was croaking about cancer," but the doctor was a fool.

"What about yourself, though?" he said. "Great doings at the Castle, they're telling me."

I thought this a favourable opportunity to speak about my own affairs, so I began on my story again, and though I found it harder to tell now that my listener was my father, I struggled on and on, as well as I could for the emotion that was choking me.

I thought he would pity me. I expected him to be angry. Although he was showing me some of the contemptuous tenderness which he had always assumed towards my mother, yet I was his daughter, and I felt sure that he would want to leap out of bed that he might take my husband by the throat and shake him as a terrier shakes a rat. But what happened was something quite different.

Hardly had I begun when he burst out laughing.

"God bless my soul," he cried, "you're never going to lose your stomach over a thing like that?"

I thought he had not understood me, so I tried to speak plainer.

"I see," he said. "Sweethearting some other woman, is he? Well, what of it? He isn't the first husband who has done the like, and I guess he won't be the last."

Still I thought I had not made myself clear, so I said my husband had been untrue to me, that his infidelities under my own roof had degraded me in my own eyes and everybody else's, that I could not bear to live such a life any longer and consequently. . . .

"Consequently," said my father, "you come to me to fight your battles for you. No, no, fight them yourself, gel. No father-in-law ought to interfere."

It was a man's point of view I suppose, but I was ready to cry with vexation and disappointment, and though I conquered the impulse to do that I could go no farther.

"Who's the woman?" he asked.

I told him it was one of our house-party.

"Then cut her out. I guess you're clever enough to do it, whoever she is. You've got the looks too, and I don't grudge you the money. Cut her out—that's the best advice I can give you. Make your husband see you're the better woman of the two. Cut her out, I'm saying, and don't come whining here like a cry-baby, who runs to her grandmother's apron-strings at the first scratch she gets outside."

He had been reaching forward, but he now fell back on his pillows, saying:

"I see how it is, though. Women without children are always vapouring about their husbands, as if married life ought to be a garden of Eden. One woman, one man, and all the rest of the balderdash. I sot your Aunt Bridget on you before, gel, and I'll have to do it again I'm thinking. But go away now. If I'm to get better I must have rest. Nessy!" (calling) "I've a mort o' things to do and most everything is on my shoulders. Nessy! My medicine! Nessy! Nessy! Where in the world has that girl gone to?"

"I'm here, Daniel," said Nessy MacLeod coming back to the room; and as I went out and passed down the corridor, with a crushed and broken spirit and the tears ready to gush from my eyes, I heard her coaxing him in her submissive and insincere tones, while he blamed and scolded her.

Half an hour afterwards Aunt Bridget came to me in my mother's room. Never in my life before had I been pleased to see her. She, at least, would see my situation with a woman's eyes. But I was doomed to another disappointment.

"Goodness me, girl," she cried, "what's this your father tells me? One of your own guests, is it? That one with the big eyes I'll go bail. Well, serve you right, I say, for bringing a woman like that into the house with your husband—so smart and such a quality toss with her. If you were lonely coming home why didn't you ask your aunt or your first cousin? There would have been no trouble with your husband then—not about me at all events. But what are you thinking of doing?"

"Getting a divorce," I answered, firmly, for my heart was now aflame.

If I had held a revolver in Aunt Bridget's face she could not have looked more shocked.

"Mary O'Neill, are you mad?" she cried. "Divorce indeed! No woman of our family has ever disgraced herself like that. What will your father say? What's to happen to Betsy Beauty? What are people going to think about me?"

I answered that I had not made my marriage, and those who had made it must take the consequences.

"What does that matter now? Hundreds of thousands of women have married the wrong man of their own free will, but if every woman who has made a rue-bargain were to try to get out of it your way where would the world be, I wonder? Perhaps you think you could marry somebody else, but you couldn't. What decent man wants to marry a divorced woman even if she is the injured party?"

"Then you think I ought to submit—tamely submit to such infidelities?" I asked.

"Sakes alive," said Aunt Bridget, "what else can you do? Men are polygamous animals, and we women have to make up our minds to it. Goodness knows I had to when the old colonel used to go hanging around those English barmaids at the 'Cock and Hen.' Be a little blind, girl—that's what nine wives out of ten have to be every day and every night and all the world over."

"Will that make my husband any better?" I asked.

"I don't say it will," said Aunt Bridget. "It will make you better, though. What the eye doesn't see the heart doesn't grieve for. That's something, isn't it?"

When I went to bed that night my whole soul was in revolt. The Church, the law, society, parental power, all the conventions and respectabilities seemed to be in a conspiracy to condone my husband's offence and to make me his scapegoat, doomed to a life of hypocrisy and therefore immorality and shame. I would die rather than endure it. Yes, I would die that very day rather than return to my husband's house and go through the same ordeal again.

But next morning when I thought of Martin, as I always did on first awakening, I told myself that I would live and be a clean woman in my own eyes whatever the World might think of me.

Martin was now my only refuge, so I would tell him everything. It would be hard to do that, but no matter, I would crush down my modesty and tell him everything. And then, whatever he told me to do I should do it.

I knew quite well what my resolution meant, what it implied and involved, but still I thought, "Whatever he tells me to do I will do it."

I remembered what the Countess in Rome had said about a life of "complete emancipation" as an escape from unhappy marriage, and even yet I thought "Whatever he tells me to do I will do it."

After coming to that conclusion I felt more at ease and got up to dress.

It was a beautiful morning, and I looked down into the orchard, where the apples were reddening under the sunshine and the gooseberries were ripening under their hanging boughs, when in the quiet summer air I heard a footstep approaching.

An elderly woman in an old-fashioned quakerish bonnet was coming up the drive. She carried a little bunch of red and white roses, and her face, which was very sweet and simple, wore the pathetic expression of a child in trouble.

It was Martin's mother. She was coming to see me, and at the first sight of her something told me that my brave resolution was about to be broken, and I was going to be shaken to the depths of my being.

I heard the bell of the front door ringing. After a moment a maid came up and said:

"Mrs. Doctor Conrad has called to see your ladyship."

"Bring her here," I answered.

My heart was in my mouth already.

When Martin's mother came into the room she looked nervous and almost frightened, as if she had charged herself with a mission which she was afraid to fulfil. But I put her to sit in my mother's easy chair and sat on the arm of it myself, and then she seemed calmer and more comfortable.

In spite of the silver threads in the smooth hair under her poke bonnet her dear face was still the face of a child, and never before had it seemed to me so helpless and child-like.

After a moment we began to talk of Martin. I said it must be a great happiness to her to have him back after his long and perilous voyage; and she answered that it was, but his visit was so short, only four days altogether, although the doctor and she had looked forward to it so long.

"That's not Martin's fault, though," she said. "He's such a good son. I really, really think no mother ever had such a good son. But when children grow up they can't always be thinking of the old people, can they? That's why I say to the doctor, 'Doctor,' I say, 'perhaps we were the same ourselves when we were young and first loved each other.'"

Already I thought I saw vaguely what the dear soul had come to tell me, but I only said I supposed Martin was still with them.

She told me no, he had gone to King George's. That was his old school, and being prize-giving day the masters had asked him to the sports and to the dinner that was to be given that night before the breaking-up for the holidays.

"The boys will give him a cheer, I know they will," she said.

I said of course he would be back to-morrow, but again she said no; he had gone for good, and they had said good-bye to him. When he left King George's he was to go on to Castle Raa. Didn't I know that? He had said he would telegraph to me. But being from home perhaps I had not yet received his message. Oh yes, he was going on to the Castle to-morrow night and would stay there until it was time to leave the island.

"I'm so glad," I said, hardly knowing with what fervour I had said it, until I saw the same expression of fear come back to the sweet old face.

"Martin will be glad, too," she said, "and that's why I've come to see you."

"That?"

"You won't be cross with me, will you? But Martin is so fond of you. . . . He always has been fond of you, ever since he was a boy . . . but this time. . . ."

"Yes?"

"This time I thought . . . I really, really thought he was too fond of you."

I had to hold my breast to keep down the cry of joy that was rising to my throat, but the dear soul saw nothing.

"Not that he said so—not to say said so, but it's a mother to see things, isn't it? And he was talking and talking so much about Mary O'Neill that I was frightened—really frightened."

"Frightened?"

"He's so tender-hearted, you see. And then you . . . you're such a wonderful woman grown. Tommy the Mate says there hasn't been the like of you on this island since they laid your mother under the sod. It's truth enough, too—gospel truth. And Martin—Martin says there isn't your equal, no, not in London itself neither. So . . . so," she said, trembling and stammering, "I was thinking . . . I was thinking he was only flesh and blood like the rest of us, poor boy, and if he got to be too fond of you . . . now that you're married and have a husband, you know. . . ."

The trembling and stammering stopped her for a moment.

"They're saying you are not very happy in your marriage neither. Times and times I've heard people saying he isn't kind to you, and they married you against your will. . . . So I was telling myself if that's so, and Martin and you came together now, and you encouraged him, and let him go on and anything came of it . . . any trouble or disgrace or the like of that . . . it would be such a terrible cruel shocking thing for the boy . . . just when everybody's talking about him and speaking so well too."

It was out at last. Her poor broken-hearted story was told. Being a married woman, unhappily married, too, I was a danger to her beloved son, and she had come to me in her sweet, unmindful, motherly selfishness to ask me to protect him against myself.

"Whiles and whiles I've been thinking of it," she said. "'What will I do?' I've been asking myself, and sometimes I've been thinking I would speak to Martin. I didn't dare do it, though. But when I heard last night that you had come home to see your father, I said: 'Doctor, I'll go over and speak to herself.' 'You'll never do that, Christian Ann,' said the doctor. 'Yes, I will,' I said. 'I'll speak to the young mistress herself. She may be a great lady now, but haven't I nursed her on my knee? She'll never do anything to harm my boy, if I ask her not to. No indeed she won't. Not Mary O'Neill. I'll never believe it of her. Never in this world.'"

The sweet old face was beaming but it was wet with tears, too, and while trying to get out her pocket-handkerchief, she was fumbling with the flowers which she was still holding and passing from hand to hand.

"Let me take the roses," I said as well as I could, for I could scarcely say anything.

"I brought them for you," she said, and then she laughed, a little confusedly, at her own forgetfulness.

"To be sure they're nothing to the green-house ones you'll have at the Castle, but I thought you'd like them for all that. They're from the tree outside the window of your own little room. We call it your room still—the one you slept in when you came in your little velvet frock and pinnie, singing carols to my door. 'Mary O'Neill's room,' Martin called it then, and it's been the same to us ever since."

This touched me so deeply that, before I knew what I was doing, I was putting my arm about her waist and asking her to tell me what she wished me to do and I would do it.

"Will you, though?" she said, and then one by one she propounded the artless little schemes she had concocted to cure Martin of what she conceived to be his love for me.

Her first thought was that I might make excuse of my father's illness to remain where I was until the time came for Martin to leave the island; but she repented of this almost immediately, remembering that Martin was set on seeing me, ('I must see her,' he had said) and if he did not see me he would be so downhearted.

Then she thought I might praise up my husband to Martin, saying what a fine man he was to be sure, and how good he had been to me, and what a proud woman I was to be married to him; but she was ashamed of that almost as soon as she had said it, for it might not be true, and Martin might see I was pretending.

Finally, she suggested that in order to create a coolness between Martin and myself I might try not to be so nice to him, speaking short to him sometimes, and even harsh and angry; but no, that would be too cruel, especially from me, after all these years, just when he was going so far away, too, and only the Lord and the blessed saints knew what was to become of him.

It was Martin, Martin, always Martin. Still in her sweet motherly selfishness she could think of nobody else. Fondly as she loved me, it never occurred to her for a moment that if I did what she wished and sent Martin away from me, I too would suffer. But a harder heart than mine would have melted at the sight of her perplexity and distress, and when with a helpless look she said:

"I don't know what you are to do—I really, really don't," I comforted her (needing comfort so much myself), and told her I would find a way of my own to do what she desired.

"Will you, though?" she said.

"Indeed I will."

"And you won't send him away sore-hearted, either?"

"Indeed I won't."

"I knew you would say that. May the Lord and His holy Mother bless you!"

She was weeping tender, copious, blessed tears by this time, but there were smiles behind them.

"Not that there's another woman in the world I would rather give him to if things were as they used to be. But they're different now, are they not?" she asked.

"Yes, they're different now," I answered.

"But are you sure you're not cross with me for coming?"

"Oh, no, no," I said, and it was all I could say for my voice was failing me.

She gave a sigh of inexpressible relief and then rose to go.

"I must be going now. The doctor is digging in the garden and he hasn't had his breakfast. But I put the pot on the slouree to boil and it will be ready for the porridge."

She got as far as the door and then turned and said:

"I wish I had a photo of you—a right one, just as you are at this very minute. I'd hang it in your own room, and times and times in the day I'd be running upstairs to look at it. But it's all as one. I've got a photo of you here," (touching her breast) "and sometimes I can see it as plain as plain."

I could not speak after that, but I kissed her as she was going out, and she said:

"That's nice, now! Good-bye, my chree! You'll not be going home until to-morrow, it's like, so perhaps I'll be putting another sight on you. Good-bye!"

I went to the window to watch her as she walked down the drive. She was wiping her eyes, but her head was up and I thought her step was light, and I was sure her face was shining.

God bless her! The dear sweet woman! Such women as she is, and my mother was—so humble and loving, so guileless and pure, never saying an unkind word or thinking an unkind thought—are the flowers of the world that make the earth smell sweet.

When she was gone and I remembered the promise I had made to her I asked myself what was to become of me. If I could neither divorce my husband under any circumstances without breaking a sacrament of the Church, nor love Martin and be loved by him without breaking the heart of his mother, where was I?

I intended to go home the following morning; I was to meet Martin the following night. What was I to say? What was I to do?

All day long these questions haunted me and I could find no answers. But towards evening I took my troubles where I had often taken them—to Father Dan.

The door of the Presbytery was opened by Father Dan's Irish housekeeper, a good old soul whose attitude to her master was that of a "moithered" mother to a wilful child.

All the way up the narrow staircase to his room, she grumbled about his reverence. Unless he was sickening for the scarlet fever she didn't know in her seven sinses what was a-matter with him these days. He was as white as a ghost, and as thin as a shadder, and no wonder neither, for he didn't eat enough to keep body and soul together.

Yesterday itself she had cooked him a chicken as good as I could get at the Big House; "done to a turn, too, with a nice bit of Irish bacon on top, and a bowl of praties biled in their jackets and a basin of beautiful new buttermilk;" but no, never a taste nor a sup did he take of it.

"It's just timpting Providence his reverence is, and it'll be glory to God if you'll tell him so."

"What's that you're saying about his reverence, Mrs. Cassidy?" cried Father Dan from the upper landing.

"I'm saying you're destroying yourself with your fasting and praying and your midnight calls at mountain cabins, and never a ha'porth of anything in your stomach to do it on."

"Whisht then, Mrs. Cassidy, it's tay-time, isn't it? So just step back to your kitchen and put on your kittle, and bring up two of your best china cups and saucers, and a nice piece of buttered toast, not forgetting a thimbleful of something neat, and then it's the mighty proud woman ye'll be entoirely to be waiting for once on the first lady in the island. . . . Come in, my daughter, come in."

He was laughing as he let loose his Irish tongue, but I could see that his housekeeper had not been wrong and that he looked worn and troubled.

As soon as he had taken me into his cosy study and put me to sit in the big chair before the peat and wood fire, I would have begun on my errand, but not a word would he hear until the tea had come up and I had taken a cup of it.

Then stirring the peats for light as well as warmth, (for the room was dark with its lining of books, and the evening was closing in) he said:

"Now what is it? Something serious—I can see that much."

"It is serious, Father Dan."

"Tell me then," he said, and as well as I could I told him my story.

I told him that since I had seen him last, during that violent scene at Castle Raa, my relations with my husband had become still more painful; I told him that, seeing I could not endure any longer the degradation of the life I was living, I had thought about divorce; I told him that going first to the Bishop and afterwards to my father's advocate I had learned that neither the Church nor the law, for their different reasons, could grant me the relief I required; and finally, in a faint voice (almost afraid to hear myself speak it), I told him my solemn and sacred secret—that whatever happened I could not continue to live where I was now living because I loved somebody else than my husband.

While I was speaking Father Dan was shuffling his feet and plucking at his shabby cassock, and as soon as I had finished he flashed out on me with an anger I had never seen in his face or heard in his voice before.

"I know who it is," he said. "It's Martin Conrad."

I was so startled by this that I was beginning to ask how he knew, when he cried:

"Never mind how I know. Perhaps you think an old priest has no eyes for anything but his breviary, eh? It's young Martin, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"The wretch, the rascal, the scoundrel! If he ever dares to come to this house again, I'll slam the door in his face."

I knew he loved Martin almost as much as I did, so I paid no heed to the names he was calling him, but I tried to say that I alone had been to blame, and that Martin had done nothing.

"Don't tell me he has done nothing," cried Father Dan. "I know what he has done He has told you he loves you, hasn't he?"

"No."

"He has been colloguing with you, then, and getting you to say things?"

"Never."

"Pitying and sympathising with you, anyway, in your relations with your husband?"

"Not for one moment."

"He had better not! Big man as he is in England now, I'll warm his jacket for him if he comes here making mischief with a child of mine. But thank the Lord and the holy saints he's going away soon, so you'll see no more of him."

"But he is coming to Castle Raa," I said, "and I am to see him to-morrow night."

"That too! The young scoundrel!"

I explained that my husband had invited him, being prompted to do so by the other woman.

"Worse and worse!" cried Father Dan. "Don't you see that they're laying a trap for you, and like two young fools you're walking directly into it. But no matter! You mustn't go."

I told him that I should be compelled to do so, for Martin was coming on my account only, and I could neither tell him the truth nor make an excuse that would not be a falsehood.

"Well, well, perhaps you're right there. It's not the best way to meet temptation to be always running away from it. That's Irish, but it's true enough, though. You must conquer this temptation, my child; you must fight it and overcome it."

"But I've tried and tried and I cannot," I said.

And then I told him the story of my struggle—how love had been no happiness to me but only a cruel warfare, how I had suffered and prayed and gone to mass and confession, yet all to no purpose, for my affection for Martin was like a blazing fire which nothing could put out.

Father Dan's hands and lips were trembling while I spoke and I could see that he was shuddering with pity for me, so I went on to say that if God had put this pure and holy love into my heart could it be wrong—

"Stop a minute," cried Father Dan. "Who says God put it there? And who informed you it was pure and holy? Let us see where we are. Come, now. You say the Bishop told you that you could never be divorced under any circumstances?"

"Yes."

"Yet you wish to leave your husband?"

"How can I help it? The life I have been living is too horrible."

"Never mind that now. You wish to leave your husband, don't you?"

"I . . . I must."

"And you want to go to this . . . this young . . . in short, you want to go to Martin Conrad? That's the plain truth, isn't it? Don't deny it. Very well, let us call things by their proper names. What is the fact? You are asking me—me, your spiritual Father—to allow you to live a life of open adultery. That's what it comes to. You know it is, and God and His holy Mother have mercy on your soul!"

I was so startled and shocked by his fierce assault, and by the cruel climax it had come to, that I flung up my hands to my face and kept them there, for I felt as if my brain had been stunned and my heart was bursting.

How long I sat like this, with my hidden face to the fire, I do not know; but after a long silence in which I heard nothing but my own heaving breath, I became aware that Father Dan had drawn one of my hands down to his knee and was smoothing it with his own.

"Don't be angry with your old priest for telling you the truth," he said. "It's hard to bear; I know it's hard; but it's as hard for him as for you, my child. Think—only think what he is trying to save you from. If you do what you wish to do, you will put yourself out of communion. If you put yourself out of communion, you will cease to be a Catholic. What will become of you then, my daughter? What will be left to replace the consolations of the Church—in sorrow, in suffering, in the hour of death? Have you never thought of that?"

I never had. It was thrilling through and through me.

"You say you cannot live any longer with your husband because he has broken the vow he made to you at your marriage. But think how many many thousands of poor women all the world over are doing it every day—living with adulterous husbands for the sake of their homes and children. And not for the sake of their homes and children only, but for the sake of their souls and their religion. Blessed, blessed martyrs, though we know nothing about them, holding society and the Church and the human family together."

I was trembling all over. I felt as if Father Dan were trying to take away from me the only sweet and precious thing in my life that was left.

"Then you think you cannot live without the one you love, because all your heart is full of him. But think of the holy women, the holy saints, who have gone through the same temptation—fighting against it with all the strength of their souls until the very wounds of our blessed Lord have been marked on their bodies."

He was creeping closer to my side. His voice was quivering at my ear. I was struggling hard, and still trembling all over.

"Hold fast by the Church, my child. It is your only refuge. Remember that God made your marriage and you cannot break it without forsaking your faith. Can anything be good that is bought at such a price? Nothing in this world! When you meet to-morrow night—you two children—tell him that. Tell him I told you to say so. . . . I love you both. Don't break your old priest's heart. He's in trouble enough for you already. Don't let him think that he must lose you altogether. And then remember your mother, too—that saint in heaven who suffered so long and was patient. . . . Everything will depend upon you, my child. In matters of this kind the woman is the stronger vessel. Be strong for him also. Renounce your guilty love, my daughter—"

"But I cannot, I cannot," I said. "I love him, and I cannot give him up!"

"Let us ask God to help you," said Father Dan, and still holding my hand he drew me down to my knees and knelt beside me. The room was dark by this time, and only the sullen glow from the peat fire was on our faces.

Then in a low voice, so low that it was like his throbbing whisper before the altar, when he raised the Sacred host, Father Dan prayed for me (calling me his dear child whom God had committed to his care) that I might keep my marriage vow and be saved from the temptation to break it.

His beautiful prayer or his throbbing voice, or both together, had a great effect upon me, and when I rose to my feet, I felt stronger. Although Martin was as dear to me as ever, I thought I saw my way at last. If he loved me as I loved him, I had to be brave for both of us. I had to oppose to the carnal instinct of love the spiritual impulse of renunciation. Yes, yes, that was what I had to do.