Mark stepped into the little dining room, where the table was already set, and waited for the priest. Ann went back to her cooking. Mark could hear her rattling the dishes and pans, all the while issuing orders to her assistants for the day. Ann was quite the most important personage in the parish on this occasion and had to show it. It was seldom she had such authority over others. Why not make the most of it?
There was only a folding door between the dining room where Mark waited and, the room in which the Bishop sat Mark heard the Bishop arise impatiently from his chair and pace the room, a fact which caused him no little wonder. The Bishop had not impressed him as a man of nervous temperament. Mark now heard him sit down again, crunching the springs of the chair, and again jump up, to continue his nervous pacing. Then the door from the hallway into the parlor opened and Mark heard the Bishop's voice: "Is she the woman?"
A young voice, which Mark was sure belonged to the secretary, answered: "I am sorry to say, Bishop, that she is."
"My God!" said the Bishop. There was deep distress in his tones. "Father, are you perfectly sure?"
"I could not be mistaken, Bishop. I stayed in the sacristy until all had left the church except her attendant and herself. She was crying, and she threw back the veil to use her handkerchief. Then I saw her face quite plainly. She is the woman."
"Crying?" The Bishop seemed about to cry himself. "Poor creature, poor creature--and unfortunate man. So he has brought her here after all. I am afraid, Father, I did not do right when I omitted telling him the exact situation. What shall we do? We cannot possibly stay."
Mark felt that he was eavesdropping, but everything had happened so quickly that there had been no chance to escape. He could not help hearing. His uneasiness became a great fear, and he felt that his face was bloodless. Turning to escape if possible through the kitchen, he paused long enough to hear the secretary say: "No, Bishop, I am afraid you cannot stay. Monsignore Murray is quite beyond understanding. He seems so good, and yet to have done a thing like this is awful. Surely he realizes what a scandal he may stir up."
"Could you possibly secure an automobile to take us to Father Darcy's?" asked the Bishop anxiously. "He lives in the next town, and we could catch the train at his station."
"I will try."
By this time Mark had decided that he could not very well go through the kitchen, and he had heard enough to make him feel that his duty toward Ruth was to wait. It was something he would not have done under other circumstances; but Mark was in love, and he remembered the adage about love and war.