“Father,” I said, “have you heard the news?”

“The news. . . .”

“I mean the news in the newspaper.”

“Ah, the news in the newspaper.”

“Isn’t it glorious?  That terrible marriage is over at last!  Without my doing anything, either!  Do you remember what you said the last time I came here?”

“The last time. . . .”

“You said that I, being a Catholic, could not break my marriage without breaking my faith.  But my husband, being a Protestant, had no compunction.  So it has come to the same thing in the end, you see.  And now I’m free.”

“You’re free . . . free, are you?”

“It seems they have been keeping it all away from me—­making no defence, I suppose—­and it was only this morning I heard the news.”

“Only this morning, was it?”

“I first saw it in a newspaper, but afterwards Martin himself came to tell me.”

“Martin came, did he?”

“He doesn’t care in the least; in fact, he is glad, and says we can be married at any time.”

“Married at any time—­he says that, does he?”

“Of course nothing is arranged yet, dear Father, but I couldn’t help coming to see you about it.  I want everything to be simple and quiet—­no display of any kind.”

“Simple and quiet, do you?”

“Early in the morning—­immediately after mass, perhaps.”

“Immediately after mass. . . .”

“Only a few wild flowers on the altar, and the dear homely souls who love me gathered around.”

“The dear, homely souls. . . .”

“It will be a great, great thing for me, but I don’t want to force myself upon anybody, or to triumph over any one—­least of all over my poor father, now that he is so sick and down.”

“No, no . . . now that he is so sick and down.”

“I shall want you to marry us, Daddy Dan—­not the Bishop or anybody else of that kind, you know.”

“You’ll want me to marry you—­not the Bishop or anybody else of that kind.”

“But Father Dan,” I cried, laughing a little uneasily (for I had begun to realise that he was only repeating my own words), “why don’t you say something for yourself?”

And then the cheery sunshine of the cosy room began to fade away.

Father Dan fumbled the silver cross which hung over his cassock (a sure sign of his nervousness), and said with a grave face and in a voice all a-tremble with emotion: 

“My child. . . .”

“Yes?”

“You believe that I wouldn’t pain or distress or shock you if I could avoid it?”

“Indeed I do.”

“Yet I am going to pain and distress and shock you now.  I . . .  I cannot marry you to Martin Conrad.  I daren’t.  The Church thinks that you are married already—­that you are still the wife of your husband.”

Though my dear priest had dealt me my death-blow, I had not yet begun to feel it, so I smiled up into his troubled old face and said: