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Father Consett put his hand beneath the tail of his coat.

'Sylvia Tietjens,' he said, 'in my pistol pocket I've a little bottle of holy water which I carry for such occasions. What if I was to throw two drops of it over you and cry: Exorcizo to Ashtaroth in nomine?...

She erected her body above her skirts on the sofa, stiffened like a snake's neck above its coils. Her face was quite pallid, her eyes staring out.

'You...you daren't,' she said. 'To me...an outrage!' Her feet slid slowly to the floor; she measured the distance to the doorway with her eyes. 'You daren't,' she said again; 'I'd denounce you to the Bishop...'

'It's little the Bishop would help you with them burning into your skin,' the priest said. 'Go away, I bid you, and say a Hail Mary or two. Ye need them. Ye'll not talk of corrupting a little child before me again.'

'I won't,' Sylvia said. 'I shouldn't have...'

Her black figure showed in silhouette against the open doorway.

When the door was closed upon them, Mrs Satterthwaite said:

Was it necessary to threaten her with that? You know best, of course. It seems rather strong to me.'

'It's a hair from the dog that's bit her,' the priest said. 'She's a silly girl. She's been playing at black masses along with that Mrs Profumo and the fellow whose name I can't remember. You could tell that. They cut the throat of a white kid and splash its blood about...That was at the back of her mind...It's not very serious. A parcel of silly, idle girls. It's not much more than palmistry or fortune-telling to them if one has to weigh it, for all its ugliness, as a sin. As far as their volition goes, and it's volition that's the essence of prayer, black or white...But it was at the back of her mind, and she won't forget to-night.'

'Of course, that's your affair, Father,' Mrs Satterthwaite said lazily. 'You hit her pretty hard. I don't suppose she's ever been hit so hard. What was it you wouldn't tell her?'

'Only,' the priest said, 'I wouldn't tell her because the thought's best not put in her head...But her hell on earth will come when her husband goes running, blind, head down, mad after another woman.'

Mrs Satterthwaite looked at nothing; then she nodded. 'Yes,' she said; 'I hadn't thought of it...But will he? He is a very sound fellow, isn't he?'

'What's to stop it?' the priest asked. 'What in the world but the grace of our blessed Lord, which he hasn't got and doesn't ask for? And then...He's a young man, full-blooded, and they won't be living...maritalement. Not if I know him. And then...Then she'll tear the house down. The world will echo with her wrongs.'

'Do you mean to say,' Mrs Satterthwaite said, 'that Sylvia would do anything vulgar?'

'Doesn't every woman who's had a man to torture for years when she loses him?' the priest asked. 'The more she's made an occupation of torturing him, the less right she thinks she has to lose him.'

Mrs Satterthwaite looked gloomily into the dusk.

'That poor devil...' she said. 'Will he get any peace anywhere?...What's the matter, Father?'

The Father said:

'I've just remembered she gave me tea and cream and I drank it. Now I can't take mass for Father Reinhardt. I'll have to go and knock up his curate, who lives away in the forest.'

At the door, holding the candle, he said:

'I'd have you not get up to-day nor yet to-morrow, if ye can stand it. Have a headache and let Sylvia nurse you...You'll have to tell how she nursed you when you get back to London. And I'd rather ye didn't lie more out and out than ye need, if it's to please me...Besides, if ye watch Sylvia nursing you, you might hit on a characteristic touch to make it seem more truthful...How her sleeves brushed the medicine bottles and irritated you, maybe...or--you'll know! If we can save scandal to the congregation, we may as well.'

He ran downstairs.

III

At the slight creaking made by Macmaster in pushing open his door, Tietjens started violently. He was sitting in a smoking-jacket, playing patience engrossedly