stories she set going were untrue.  Father Peter had warned him, but warnings are no good; he had listened to her convinced at the time that it was wrong and foolish to listen to scandalmongers, but unable to resist that beguiling tongue, for Mrs. O’Mara had a beguiling tongue—­fool that he was, that he had been.  There was no use going over the wretched story again; he was weary of going over it, and he tried to put it out of his mind.  But it wouldn’t be put out of his mind, and in spite of himself he began to recall the events of the fatal day.  He had been out all the morning, walking about with an engineer who was sent down by the Board of Works to consider the possibility of building the bridge, and had just come in to rest.  Catherine had brought him a cup of tea; he was sitting by the window, almost too tired to drink it.  The door was flung open.  If Catherine had only asked him if he were at home to visitors, he would have said he wasn’t at home to Mrs. O’Mara, but he wasn’t asked; the door was flung open, and he found himself face to face with the parish magpie.  And before he could bless himself she began to talk to him about the bridge, saying that she knew all about the engineer, how he had gotten his appointment, and what his qualifications were.  It is easy to say one shouldn’t listen to such gossips, but it is hard to shut one’s ears or to let what one hears with one ear out the other ear, for she might be bringing him information that might be of use to him.  So he listened, and when the bridge, and the advantage of it, had been discussed, she told him she had been staying at the convent.  She had tales to tell about all the nuns and about all the pupils.  She told him that half the Catholic families in Ireland had promised to send their daughters to Tinnick if Eliza succeeded in finding somebody who could teach music and singing.  But Eliza didn’t think there was anyone in the country qualified for the post but Nora Glynn.  If Mrs. O’Mara could be believed, Eliza said that she could offer Nora Glynn more money than she was earning in Garranard.  Until then he had only half listened to Mrs. O’Mara’s chatter, for he disliked the woman—­her chatter amused him only as the chatter of a bird might; but when he heard that his sister was trying to get his schoolmistress away from him he had flared up.  ’Oh, but I don’t think that your schoolmistress would suit a convent school.  I shouldn’t like my daughter—­’ ‘What do you mean?’ Her face changed expression, and in her nasty mincing manner she began to throw out hints that Nora Glynn would not suit the nuns.  He could see that she was concealing something—­there was something at the back of her mind.  Women of her sort want to be persuaded; their bits of scandal must be dragged from them by force; they are the unwilling victims who would say nothing if they could help it.  She had said enough to oblige him to ask her to speak out, and she began to throw out hints about a man whom Nora used to meet on the hillside (she wouldn’t