They resigned her to the care of Biddy, who had always considered it her proper function and privilege to deal with the affair. She set about it clumsily but with confidence, tempting Gabrielle to eat with carefully prepared surprises, obviously humouring her in everything she did. From the very first she had viewed the Radway affair with suspicion, and now she found it difficult not to say, 'I told you so,' though, as a matter of fact, she had done nothing of the sort. Altogether her methods were too transparent to be successful; and since her own robust habit of body made it difficult for her to divine any subtler cause for Gabrielle's condition, she leapt at once to the physical explanation suggested to her by her own experience of the consequences of love-making in Joyce's country. She watched Gabrielle with a keen and matronly eye, collecting her evidence from day to day after the anxious manner of mothers. When she had dwelt upon the problem for a couple of months she prepared the results of her scrutinies and offered them in a complete and alarming dossier to Jocelyn. In her opinion--and on this subject at least her opinion was of value--there could be no doubt as to Gabrielle's condition. To Biddy Joyce this seemed the most natural thing in the world, but to Jocelyn the announcement came as a tremendous surprise. He knew well enough that this sort of accident was an everyday affair, in effect the usual prelude to matrimony, among the peasantry of Connaught; but that such an ugly circumstance should intrude itself into the Hewish family--in the case of one of its female members--seemed a monstrous calamity. He was in no condition to stand another shock, and Biddy's pronouncement completely knocked him over. In a case of this kind it was idle to doubt her authority. He only wondered how he could make the best of a desperate job. Distasteful as the business was to him, he decided to tackle Gabrielle herself. It was a very strange interview. On Jocelyn's part there were no recriminations. He was growing gentle in his old age, and in any case he regarded Gabrielle as the victim of a tragedy. All that he wanted to do was to get at the truth, and than this nothing could have been harder, for in Gabrielle he found not only an amazing ignorance--or if you prefer the word, innocence--but a flaming, passionate determination to keep silence on the subject of her intimacies with Radway. To her the story was sacred, and far too precious to be bruised by the examination of any living soul.