It was sweet, but it was also painful to stay long in that house of love, and as soon as I had eaten my oat-cake and honey I got up to go.  The two good souls saw me to the door saying I was not to expect either of them at the Big House on my wedding-day, because she was no woman for smart clothes, and the doctor, who was growing rheumatic, had given up his night-calls, and therefore his gig, so as to keep down expenses.

“We’ll be at the church, though,” said Martin’s mother.  “And if we don’t see you to speak to, you’ll know we’re there and wishing you happiness in our hearts.”

I could not utter a word when I left them; but after I had walked a little way I looked back, intending to wave my farewell, and there they were together at the gate still, and one of her hands was on the doctor’s shoulder—­the sweet woman who had chosen love against the world, and did not regret it, even now when the night was falling on her.

I had to pass the Presbytery on my way home, and as I did so, I saw Father Dan in his study.  He threw up the window sash and called in a soft voice, asking me to wait until he came down to me.

He came down hurriedly, just as he was, in his worn and discoloured cassock and biretta, and walked up the road by my side, breathing rapidly and obviously much agitated.

“The Bishop is staying with me over the wedding, and he is in such a fury that . . .  Don’t worry.  It will be all right.  But . . .”

“Yes?”

“Did you see young Martin Conrad while you were in Rome?”

I answered that I did.

“And did anything pass between you . . . about your marriage, I mean?”

I told him all that I had said to Martin, and all that Martin had said to me.

“Because he has written a long letter to the Bishop denouncing it, and calling on him to stop it.”

“To stop it?”

“That’s so.  He says it is nothing but trade and barter, and if the Church is willing to give its blessing to such rank commercialism, let it bless the Stock Exchange, let it sanctify the slave market.”

“Well?”

“The Bishop threatens to tell your father.  ‘Who is this young man,’ he says, ‘who dares to . . .’  But if I thought there was nothing more to your marriage than . . .  If I imagined that what occurred in the case of your dear mother . . .  But that’s not all.”

“Not all?”

“No.  Martin has written to me too, saying worse—­far worse.”

“What does he say, Father Dan?”

“I don’t really know if I ought to tell you, I really don’t.  Yet if it’s true . . . if there’s anything in it . . .”

I was trembling, but I begged him to tell me what Martin had said.  He told me.  It was about my intended husband—­that he was a man of irregular life, a notorious loose liver, who kept up a connection with somebody in London, a kind of actress who was practically his wife already, and therefore his marriage with me would be—­so Martin had said—­nothing but “legalised and sanctified concubinage.”