FIFTY-NINTH CHAPTER
Before going to my father's house I went to the Bishop's. Bishop's Court is at the other side of the island, and it was noon before I drove under its tall elm trees, in which a vast concourse of crows seemed to be holding a sort of general congress.
The Bishop was then at his luncheon, and after luncheon (so his liveried servant told me) he usually took a siesta. I have always thought it was unfortunate for my interview that it came between his food and his sleep.
The little reception-room into which I was shown was luxuriously, not to say gorgeously, appointed, with easy chairs and sofas, a large portrait of the Pope, signed by the Holy Father himself, and a number of pictures of great people of all kinds—dukes, marquises, lords, counts—as well as photographs of fashionable ladies in low dress inscribed in several languages to "My dear Father in God the Lord Bishop of Ellan."
The Bishop came to me after a few minutes, smiling and apparently at peace with all the world. Except that he wore a biretta he was dressed—as in Rome—in his long black soutane with its innumerable buttons, his silver-buckled shoes, his heavy gold chain and jewelled cross.
He welcomed me in his smooth and suave manner, asking if he could offer me a little refreshment; but, too full of my mission to think of eating and drinking, I plunged immediately into the object of my visit.
"Monsignor," I said, "I am in great trouble. It is about my marriage."
The smile was smitten away from the Bishop's face by this announcement.
"I am sorry," he said. "Nothing serious, I trust?"
I told him it was very serious, and straightway I began on the spiritual part of my grievance—that my husband did not love me, that he loved another woman, that the sacred sacrament of my marriage. . . .