But Mrs. Quirk was determined to know. She had noted the frown on her husband's face, and gathered from it that he was reading ill news.
"Just slip out, Honey, and ask Joe for his copy. I must know the worst," she said to Kathleen.
"Mr. Quirk does not wish you to know," Kathleen suggested.
"Not knowing is worse than the very illest news. I will be in a fever until I hear. Just run away and do what I ask of you."
Kathleen recognised that Mrs. Quirk was determined, and wisely obeyed without further hesitation. But when she saw the nature of the charges she paused before reading them aloud to the old lady.
Denis Quirk, with his customary straightforwardness and honesty, had printed the account of the scene in the Council Chambers word for word. There it stood—his own accusation and the counter-charges urged against him. He had attempted neither palliation nor excuse. But in the same issue of "The Mercury" he had reproduced the account of the proceedings in the Golden Vale Court, that had ended in his acquittal. More than this, he had reprinted the apology of "The Investigator," as it had appeared in that paper.
But to Kathleen and to Mrs. Quirk the account of the divorce proceedings was the most serious indictment against Denis, and here he offered neither denial nor excuse. Both women held firmly to the belief that marriage is sacred and irrevocable, and that no human power—nothing short of death—can annul the bond uniting man and wife.
Fearing to hurt her old friend, Kathleen attempted to avoid this part of the accusation. But she was a bad dissembler, and Mrs. Quirk very keen.
"There is something more, Honey. Let me hear all that those backbiters found to say," she urged.
When she had learned the full account of the charges, she burst out into lamentation.