"Do as you think best, John."
"Then I'll do it! Certainly I'll do it! What do I care what the Governor may do to me? Once a priest always a priest—he can't take that from me anyway."
It was just the chance he had been waiting for. Victor Stowell had done something for him, and before he died he wanted to do something for Victor Stowell.
"I will too! I'll give him a good wife and that's the best thing a man gets in this world anyway. I've been publishing your banns too. Do you know I'd been publishing your banns these three Sunday mornings, Victor Stowell being one of my parishioners?"
Fenella, who was feeling a tightness in the throat, contrived to say,
"Then perhaps you'll drive back with me to Castletown and celebrate the service to-morrow?"
"Why shouldn't I?" said the parson, and off he went upstairs (with a firm step this time) to put on his clerical clothes and pack his surplice in a hand-bag.
While his quick footsteps were shaking the ceiling above them the two women stood together in the study, the young one and the old one, face to face.
"It is very good of you, Mrs. Cowley, to take this risk with your husband," said Fenella.
"But isn't that what we women have all got to do?" said Mrs. Cowley.