you should come to this lonely house at this time of
night, interrupting most urgent business, not to speak of serious
offices, and make injurious insinuations against the character of a
respectable person--you, sir, who had the audacity to return openly to
the island with the partner of your sin, and to lodge her in the house
of your own mother--your own mother, sir, though Heaven knows what kind
of mother it can be who harbours her son's sin-laden mistress, his
woman, as our sick friend says. . . ."

Lord! how my hands itched! But controlling myself again, with a mighty
effort I said:

"Monsignor, I don't think I should advise you to say that again."

"Why not, sir?"

"Because I have a deep respect for your cloth and should be sorry to see
it soiled."

"Violence!" cried the Bishop, rising to his feet. "You threaten me with
violence? . . . Is there no policeman in this parish, Mr. Curphy?"

"There's one at the corner of the road, Bishop," I said. "I brought him
along with me. I should have brought the High Bailiff too, if there had
been time. You would perhaps be no worse for a few witnesses to the
business that seems to be going on here."

Saying this, as I pointed to the papers on the table, I had hit harder
than I knew, for both the Bishop and the lawyer (who had also risen)
dropped back into their seats and looked at each other with expressions
of surprise.

Then, stepping up to the table, so as to face the four of them, I said,
as calmly and deliberately as I could:

"Now listen to me. I am leaving this island in about three weeks time,
and expect to be two years--perhaps three years--away. Mary O'Neill is
going with me--as my wife. She intends to leave her child in the care of
my mother, and I intend to promise her that she may set her mind at ease
that it shall never under any circumstances be taken away. You seem to
have made up your minds that she is going to die. Please God she may
disappoint your expectations and come back strong and well. But if she
does not, and I have to return alone, and if I find that her child has
been removed from the protection in which she left it, do you know what
I shall do?"

"Go to the courts, I presume," said the lawyer.

"Oh dear, no! I'll go to no courts, Mr. Curphy. I'll go to the people
who have set the courts in motion--which means that I'll go to _you_ and
_you_ and _you_ and _you_. Heaven knows how many of us may be living
when that day comes; but as surely