As the time of my marriage came nearer I felt the ignominy the more. I
used to think that the very portraits on the walls looked at me askance
because I was going to marry the usurer's son. I was sure the old
servants were not the same, any more than the old friends; but, oddly
enough, Maureen had forgiven me, had held me to her breast and cried
over me. I felt that she knew the marriage would kill me, she only of
them all. Every night now the ghosts cried as they had cried when I was
a child, when Uncle Luke went away.
It might have been a week from my wedding-day when there lay one morning
beside my plate a letter, the handwriting on which made my heart leap
up.
Fortunately I was first at the table and I was able to hide the letter.
I could not have read it under the eyes of my grandparents, and they
must have noticed if I had taken it away unopened, because I had so few
correspondents, apart from the wedding-presents and congratulations.
I had barely hidden it when my grandparents took their places, and Neil
Doherty set the big Crown Derby teapot before my grandmother and then
went round and removed the cover of the silver dish that was in front of
my grandfather.
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