rriage with me would be--so Martin had
said--nothing but "legalised and sanctified concubinage."

With many breaks and pauses my dear old priest told me this story, as if
it were something so infamous that his simple and innocent heart could
scarcely credit it.

"If I really thought it was true," he said, "that a man living such a
life could come here to marry my little . . . But no, God could not
suffer a thing like that. I must ask, though. I must make sure. We live
so far away in this little island that . . . But I must go back now. The
Bishop will be calling for me."

Still deeply agitated, Father Dan left me by the bridge, and at the gate
of our drive I found Tommy the Mate on a ladder, covering, with flowers
from the conservatory, a triumphal arch which the joiner had hammered up
the day before.

The old man hardly noticed me as I passed through, and this prompted me
to look up and speak to him.

"Tommy," I said, "do you know you are the only one who hasn't said a
good word to me about my marriage?"

"Am I, missy?" he answered, without looking down. "Then maybe that's
because I've had so many bad ones to say to other people."

I asked which other people.

"Old Johnny Christopher, for one. I met him last night at the 'Horse and
Saddle.' 'Grand doings at the Big House, they're telling me,' says
Johnny. 'I won't say no,' I says. 'It'll be a proud day for the
grand-daughter of Neill the Lord when she's mistress of Castle Raa,'
says Johnny. 'Maybe so,' I says, 'but it'll be a prouder day for Castle
Raa when she sets her clane little foot in it.'"

TWENTY-EIGHTH CHAPTER

I should find it difficult now, after all that has happened since, to
convey an adequate idea of the sense of shame and personal dishonour
which was produced in me by Father Dan's account of the contents of
Martin's letter. It was like opening a door out of a beautiful garden
into a stagnant ditch.

That Martin's story was true I had never one moment's doubt, first
because Martin had told it, and next because it agreed at all points
with the little I had learned of Lord Raa in the only real conversation
I had yet had with him.

Obviously he cared for the other woman, and if, like his friend
Eastcliff, he had been rich enough to please himself, he would have
married her; but being in debt, and therefore in need of an allowance,
he was marrying me in return for my father's money.

It was shocking. It was sinful. I could not believ