The spiritual laws of Man were no dead letters when Bishop Wilson
presided over its spiritual courts. He was good to illegitimate
children, making them legitimate if their parents married within two
years of their birth, and often putting them on the same level with
their less injured brothers and sisters where inheritance was in
question. But he was unmerciful to the parents themselves. There is
one story of his treatment of a woman which passes all others in its
tyranny. It is, perhaps, the only deep stain on his character. I thank
God that it can never have come to the ears of Victor Hugo. Told as Hugo
would have told it, surely it must have blasted for ever the name of a
good man. It is the dark story of Katherine Kinrade.