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.