That took some of the starch out of him, but he eyed me suspiciously.

"Why don't you ask me where I got the coat, Bishop Van Wagenen?" I
said, leaning over to him.

He started. I suppose he'd just that moment remembered my leaving it
behind that day at Mrs. Ramsay's.

"Lord bless me!" he cried anxiously. "You haven't--you haven't again--"

"No, I haven't." Ah, Maggie, dear, it was worth a lot to me to be able
to say that "no" to him. "It was given to me. Guess who gave it to
me."

He shook his head.

"My husband!"

Maggie Monahan, he didn't even blink. Perhaps in the Bishop's set
husbands are not uncommon, or very likely they don't know what a
husband like Fred Obermuller means.

"I congratulate you, my child, or--or did it--were you--"

"Why, I'd never seen Fred Obermuller then," I cried. "Can't you tell a
difference, Bishop?" I pleaded. "Don't I look like a--an imposing
married woman now? Don't I seem a bit--oh, just a bit nicer?"

His eyes twinkled as he bent to look more closely at me.

"You look--you look, my little girl, exactly like the pretty, big-eyed,
wheedling-voiced child I wished to have for my own daughter."

I caught his hand in both of mine.

"Now, that's like my own, own Bishop!" I cried. Mag--Mag, he was
blushing like a boy, a prim, rather scared little school-boy that
somehow, yet--oh, I knew he must feel kindly to me! I felt so fond of
him.

"You see, Bishop Van Wagenen," I began softly, "I never had a father
and--"

"Bless me! But you told me that day you had mistaken me for--for him."

The baby! I had forgotten what that old Edward told me--that this
trusting soul actually still believed all I'd told him. What was I to
do? I tell you, Mag, it's no light thing to get accustomed to telling
the truth. You never know where it'll lead you. Here was I--just a
clever little lie or two and the dear old Bishop would be happy and
contented again. But no; that fatal habit that I've acquired of
telling the truth to Fred and you mastered me--and I fell.

"You know, Bishop," I said, shutting my eyes and speaking fast to get
it over--as I imagine you must, Mag, when you confess to Father
Phelan--"that was all a--a little farce-comedy--the whole business--all
of it--every last word of it!"

"A comedy!"

I opened my eyes to laugh at him; he was so bewildered.

"I mean a--a fib; in fact, many of them. I--I was just--it was long
ago--and I had to make you believe--"