"People as high up as the Houlihans of Clonabroney, Mrs. Wyse."
His eye was upon Rebecca with a sudden gleam.
"When I think of that, I consider it an enormous offense...." She did not flinch before them. She was thinking only of the way in which they had come to hear it.... She was concerned now that Ulick should not suffer, that his grand family name should not be dragged down with hers.... If he had not come to her she would have slipped away without a word.... And now to think that it had become public. The previous burning of her mind had been nothing to this.... But Father O'Keeffe was still speaking:
"Listen to me, girl! You are to go from hence, but not, as you may imagine, to the place from whence you came. For this very evening I intend to warn your pastor of your lapse from virtue while in our midst, so that you may not return to your father's house and have no more hope of teaching in any National school within the four seas of Ireland."
"That is only right and proper, Father!" put in Mrs. Wyse.
Rebecca was not listening or else she might have shuddered within the shadow of the torture his words held for her. In these moments she had soared far beyond them.... Through the high mood in which she was accepting her tragedy she was becoming exalted.... What glorious moments there would be, what divine compensation in whispering of the torture surrounding its beginning to the little child when it came?
"So now, Rebecca Kerr, I command you to go forth from this school and from the little children that you corrupt towards your own abomination by further presence among them."
As he moved angrily out of the school she moved quietly, and without speaking a word, to take her coat and hat down from the rack.
"Oh, wait!" commanded Mrs. Wyse, "you must not leave until three, until you have made an example of yourself here in a way that all the children may bring home the story. God knows it will be the hard thing for them to be telling their mothers when they go home. The poor little things!"
Rebecca stood there desolately alone in the hall-way through the remainder of the afternoon. In one aspect she appeared as a bold child being thus corrected by a harsh superior. On many more occasions than appeared absolutely necessary Monica McKeon passed and repassed her there as she stood so lonely. The assistant of the Boys' School was a model of disdain as, with her lip curled, she looked away out over her glasses. And ever and anon Mrs. Wyse passed in and out, muttering mournfully to herself: