ay nothing about that. But it would have _no right_ to do
so because the law can have no right to undo what God Himself has done."

Oh, it was cruel! I felt as if the future of my life were darkening
before me--as if the iron bars of a prison were closing upon me, and
fetters were being fixed on every limb.

"But even if the civil law _could_ and _would_ divorce you," said the
Bishop, "think of the injury you would be inflicting on the Church.
Yours was what is called a mixed marriage, and the Church does not
favour such marriages, but it consented in this case, and why? Because
it hoped to bring back an erring family in a second generation to the
fold of the faith. Yet what would you be doing? Without waiting for a
second generation you would he defeating its purpose."

A cold chill seemed to creep to my heart at these words. Was it the
lost opportunity the Bishop was thinking of, instead of the suffering
woman with her bruised and bleeding soul?

I rose to go. The Bishop rose with me, and began to counsel forgiveness.

"Even if you _have_ suffered injury, dear lady," he said--"I don't say
you haven't--isn't it possible to forgive? Remember, forgiveness is a
divine virtue, enjoined on us all, and especially on a woman towards the
man she has married. Only think! How many women have to practise
it--every day, all the world over!"

"Ah, well!" I said, and walked to the door.

The Bishop walked with me, urging me, as a good daughter of the Church,
to live at peace with my husband, whatever his faults, and when my
children came (as please God they would) to "instil into them the true
faith with all a mother's art, a mother's tenderness," so that the
object of my marriage might be fulfilled, and a good Catholic become the
heir to Castle Raa.

"So the Church can do nothing for me?" I said.

"Nothing but pray, dear lady," said the Bishop.

When I left him my heart was in fierce rebellion; and, since the Church
could do nothing, I determined to see if the law could do anything, so I
ordered my chauffeur to drive to the house of my father's advocate at
Holmtown.

The trial in the trees was over by this time, and a dead crow tumbled
from one of the tall elms as we passed out of the grounds.

Holmtown is a little city on the face of our bleak west coast, dominated
by a broad stretch of sea, and having the sound of the waves always
rumbling over it. Mr. Curphy's house faced the shore and his office was
an upper room