"How happy your father must be to see the fulfilment of his hopes," he
said. "Just when his health is failing him, too! How good! How
gratifying!"

The next to come was the Bishop, who, smooth and suave as ever,
congratulated me on putting aside all thoughts of divorce, so that the
object of my marriage might be fulfilled and a good Catholic become the
heir of Castle Raa.

More delicate, but also more distressing, was a letter from Father Dan,
saying he had been forbidden my husband's house and therefore could not
visit me, but having heard an angel's whisper of the sweet joy that was
coming to me, he prayed the Lord and His Holy Mother to carry me safely
through.

"I have said a rosary for you every day since you were here, my dear
child, that you might be saved from a great temptation. And now I know
you have been, and the sacrament of your holy marriage has fulfilled its
mission, as I always knew it would. So God bless you, my daughter, and
keep you pure and fit for eternal union with that blessed saint, your
mother, whom the Lord has made His own."

More than ever after this letter I felt that I must fly from my
husband's house, but, thinking of Alma, my wounded pride, my outraged
vanity (as I say, the _woman_ in me), would not let me go.

Three weeks passed.

The pavilion had been built and was being hung with gaily painted
bannerets to give the effect of the Colosseum as seen at sunset. A
covered corridor connecting the theatre with the house was being lined
with immense hydrangeas and lit from the roof by lamps that resembled
stars.

A few days before the day fixed for the event Alma, who had been too
much occupied to see me every day in the boudoir to which I confined
myself, came up to give me my instructions.

The entertainment was to begin at ten o'clock. I was to be dressed as
Cleopatra and to receive my guests in the drawing-room. At the sound of
a fanfare of trumpets I was to go into the theatre preceded by a line of
pages, and accompanied by my husband. After we had taken our places in a
private box a great ballet, brought specially from a London music-hall,
was to give a performance lasting until midnight. Then there was to be a
cotillon, led by Alma herself with my husband, and after supper the
dancing was to be resumed and kept up until sunrise, when a basketful of
butterflies and doves (sent from the South of France) were to be
liberated from cages, and to rise in a multicoloured cloud th