. . . Come in, my daughter, come in."
He was laughing as he let loose his Irish tongue, but I could see that
his housekeeper had not been wrong and that he looked worn and troubled.
As soon as he had taken me into his cosy study and put me to sit in the
big chair before the peat and wood fire, I would have begun on my
errand, but not a word would he hear until the tea had come up and I had
taken a cup of it.
Then stirring the peats for light as well as warmth, (for the room was
dark with its lining of books, and the evening was closing in) he said:
"Now what is it? Something serious--I can see that much."
"It _is_ serious, Father Dan."
"Tell me then," he said, and as well as I could I told him my story.
I told him that since I had seen him last, during that violent scene at
Castle Raa, my relations with my husband had become still more painful;
I told him that, seeing I could not endure any longer the degradation of
the life I was living, I had thought about divorce; I told him that
going first to the Bishop and afterwards to my father's advocate I had
learned that neither the Church nor the law, for their different
reasons, could grant me the relief I required; and finally, in a faint
voice (almost afraid to hear myself speak it), I told him my solemn and
sacred secret--that whatever happened I could not continue to live where
I was now living because I loved somebody else than my husband.
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