"Oh, the Doctor is broad! He is what I should call adaptable. He said by all means to extricate Harold from this wretched predicament, not only on account of the property interests involved, but on account of his moral and spiritual welfare; that, while in spirit he holds deathlessly to the indissolubility of the marriage tie, still it is unreasonable to suppose that God ever joined Harold to a person so much his inferior, and that we may look forward to the real marriage--that on which the sanctity of the home is truly based--when the law has freed him from this boyish entanglement. Oh, my dear, I feel so relieved to know that my boy can have a wife from his own class--and still have it right up there--with Him, you know!" she concluded with an upward glance, as Nancy watched her with eyes grown strangely quiet, almost steely--watched her as one might watch an ant. She had the look of one whose will had been made suddenly to stand aside by some great inner tumult. When her caller had gone she dropped back into the chair, absently pulling a glove through the fingers of one hand--her bag and parasol on the floor at her feet. One might have thought her on the point of leaving instead of having just come. The shadows were deepening in the corners of the room and about her half-shut eyes. A long time she listened to the animated voices of the brothers. At last the doors were pushed apart and they came out, Allan with his hand on Bernal's shoulder. "There's your bag--now hurry upstairs--the maid will show you where." As Bernal went out, Nancy looked up at her husband with a manner curiously quiet. "Well, Nance--" He stepped to the door to see if Bernal was out of hearing--"Bernal pleases me in the way he talks about the old gentleman's estate. Either he is most reasonable, or I have never known my true power over men." Her face was inscrutable. Indeed, she only half heard. "Mrs. Covil has been telling me some of your broader views on divorce." The words shot from her lips with the crispness of an arrow, going straight to the bull's-eye. He glanced quickly at her, the hint of a frown drawing about his eyes. "Mrs. Covil should have been more discreet. The authority of a priest in these matters is a thing of delicate adjustment--the law for one may not be the law for all. These are not matters to gossip of." "So it seems. I was thinking of your opposite counsel to Mrs. Eversley." "There--really, you know I read minds, at times--somehow I knew that would be the next thing you'd speak of." "Yes?" "The circumstances are entirely different--I may add that--that any intimation of inconsistency will be very unpleasing to me--very!" "I can see that the circumstances are different--the Eversleys are not what you would call 'important factors' in the Church--and besides--that is a case of a wife leaving her husband."