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 believe that my father, the
lawyers and the Bishop knew anything about it.
I determined to tell them, but how to do so, being what I was, a young
girl out of a convent, I did not know.
Never before had I felt so deeply the need of my mother. If she had been
alive I should have gone to her, and with my arms about her neck and my
face in her breast, I should have told her all my trouble.
There was nobody but Aunt Bridget, and little as I had ever expected to
go to her under any circumstances, with many misgivings and after much
hesitation I went.
It was the morning before the day of my marriage. I followed my aunt as
she passed through the house like a biting March wind, scolding
everybody, until I found her in her own room.
She was ironing her new white cap, and as I entered (looking pale, I
suppose) she flopped down her flat iron on to its stand and cried:
"Goodness me, girl, what's amiss? Caught a cold with your morning walks,
eh? Haven't I enough on my hands without that? We must send for the
doctor straight. We can't have _you_ laid up now, after all this trouble
and expense."
"It isn't that, Auntie."
"Then in the name of goodness what is it?"
I told her, as well as I could for the cold grey eyes that kept looking
at me through their gold-rimmed spectacles. At first my aunt listened
with amazement, and then she laughed outright.
"So _you've_ heard that story, have you? Mary O'Neill," she said, with a
thump of her flat iron, "I'm surprised at you."