While the work went on my father’s feverish pride seemed to increase.  I heard of messages to Alma saying that no money was to be spared.  The reception was to surpass in grandeur any fete ever held in Ellan.  Not knowing what high stakes my father was playing for, I was frightened by this extravagance, and from that cause alone I wished to escape from the sight of it.

I could not escape.

I felt sure that Alma hated me with an implacable hatred, and that she was trying to drive me away, thinking that would be the easiest means to gain her own ends.  For this reason, among others, the woman in me would not let me fly, so I remained and went through a purgatory of suffering.

Price, too, who had reconciled herself to my revelation, was always urging me to remain, saying: 

“Why should you go, my lady?  You are your husband’s wife, aren’t you?  Fight it out, I say.  Ladies do so every day.  Why shouldn’t you?”

Before long the whole island seemed to be astir about our reception.  Every day the insular newspapers devoted columns to the event, giving elaborate accounts of what limitless wealth could accomplish for a single night’s entertainment.  In these descriptions there was much eulogy of my father as “the uncrowned king of Ellan,” as well as praise of Alma, who was “displaying such daring originality,” but little or no mention of myself.

Nevertheless everybody seemed to understand the inner meaning of the forthcoming reception, and in the primitive candour of our insular manners some of the visits I received were painfully embarrassing.

One of the first to come was my father’s advocate, Mr. Curphy, who smiled his usual bland smile and combed his long beard while he thanked me for acting on his advice not to allow a fit of pique to break up a marriage which was so suitable from points of property and position.

“How happy your father must be to see the fulfilment of his hopes,” he said.  “Just when his health is failing him, too!  How good!  How gratifying!”

The next to come was the Bishop, who, smooth and suave as ever, congratulated me on putting aside all thoughts of divorce, so that the object of my marriage might be fulfilled and a good Catholic become the heir of Castle Raa.

More delicate, but also more distressing, was a letter from Father Dan, saying he had been forbidden my husband’s house and therefore could not visit me, but having heard an angel’s whisper of the sweet joy that was coming to me, he prayed the Lord and His Holy Mother to carry me safely through.

“I have said a rosary for you every day since you were here, my dear child, that you might be saved from a great temptation.  And now I know you have been, and the sacrament of your holy marriage has fulfilled its mission, as I always knew it would.  So God bless you, my daughter, and keep you pure and fit for eternal union with that blessed saint, your mother, whom the Lord has made His own.”