"Both you and mother," she said, "sit there scheming to make life bearable for the Ox. I call my husband the Ox. He's repulsive: like a swollen animal. Well . . . you can't do it." The lighted doorway was vacant. Father Consett sighed.
"I told you this was an evil place," he said. "In the deep forests. She'd not have such evil thoughts in another place."
Mrs. Satterthwaite said:
"I'd rather you didn't say that, Father. Sylvia would have evil thoughts in any place."
"Sometimes," the priest said, "at night I think I hear the claws of evil things scratching on the shutters. This was the last place in Europe to be christianised. Perhaps it wasn't ever even christianised and they're here yet."
Mrs. Satterthwaite said:
"It's all very well to talk like that in the day-time. It makes the place seem romantic. But it must be near one at night. And things are bad enough as it is."
"They are," Father Consett said. "The devil's at work."
Sylvia drifted back into the room with a telegram of several sheets. Father Consett held it close to one of the candles to read, for he was short-sighted.
"All men are repulsive," Sylvia said; "don't you think so, mother?"