lt not to say, 'I told you so,'
though, as a matter of fact, she had done nothing of the sort.

Altogether her methods were too transparent to be successful; and since
her own robust habit of body made it difficult for her to divine any
subtler cause for Gabrielle's condition, she leapt at once to the
physical explanation suggested to her by her own experience of the
consequences of love-making in Joyce's country. She watched Gabrielle
with a keen and matronly eye, collecting her evidence from day to day
after the anxious manner of mothers. When she had dwelt upon the
problem for a couple of months she prepared the results of her
scrutinies and offered them in a complete and alarming dossier to
Jocelyn. In her opinion--and on this subject at least her opinion was
of value--there could be no doubt as to Gabrielle's condition.

To Biddy Joyce this seemed the most natural thing in the world, but to
Jocelyn the announcement came as a tremendous surprise. He knew well
enough that this sort of accident was an everyday affair, in effect the
usual prelude to matrimony, among the peasantry of Connaught; but that
such an ugly circumstance should intrude itself into the Hewish
family--in the case of one of its female members--seemed a monstrous
calamity. He was in no condition to stand another shock, and Biddy's
pronouncement completely knocked him over. In a case of this kind it
was idle to doubt her authority. He only wondered how he could make
the best of a desperate job.

Distasteful as the business was to him, he decided to tackle Gabrielle
herself. It was a very strange interview. On Jocelyn's part there
were no recriminations. He was growing gentle in his old age, and in
any case he regarded Gabrielle as the victim of a tragedy. All that he
wanted to do was to get at the truth, and than this nothing could have
been harder, for in Gabrielle he found not only an amazing
ignorance--or if you prefer the word, innocence--but a flaming,
passionate determination to keep silence on the subject of her
intimacies with Radway. To her the story was sacred, and far too
precious to be bruised by the examination of any living soul.

It is probable that Jocelyn tackled the matter with the utmost
delicacy. Fundamentally, he had the instincts of a gentleman, and, as
Gabrielle knew, he loved her; but on this one subject no amount of
entreaties or tenderness could make her speak. In the end, when he
could get nothing out of