CHAPTER XLIV
AND WILL’S
At Will’s chambers, meanwhile, Linnet sat and waited, her flushed face in her hands, her hot ears tingling. She had plenty of time in Will’s absence to reflect and to ruminate. Horror and shame for her own outspokenness began to overcome her. If Will had accepted her sacrifice, indeed, as frankly as she offered it, that profound emotional nature would have felt nothing of the kind: her passion would have hallowed and sanctified her love in her own eyes – not as the Church could have done, to be sure; not from the religious side at all; but still, from the alternative point of view of the human heart, which to her was almost equally sacred in its way, ’twould have hallowed and sanctified it. Linnet would have regarded her union with Will as sinful and wrong, but not as impure or unholy; she wouldn’t have attempted to justify it, but she would never have felt ashamed of it. She recognised it as the union imposed upon her by the laws of her own highest nature; the laws of God, as she understood them, might forbid it and punish it – they never could make it anything else for her than pure and beautiful and true and ennobling.
But Will’s refusal, for her own sake, to accept her self-surrender, filled her soul with shame for her slighted womanhood. She understood Will’s reasons; she saw how unselfish and kind were his motives; but still, the sense remained that she had debased herself before him, all to no purpose. She had offered him the most precious gift a woman can offer to any man – and he, he had rejected it. Linnet bowed down her head in intense humiliation. On her own scheme of life, she would have been far less dishonoured by Will’s accepting her then and there, in a hot flood of passion, than by his proposal to wait till she could get a purely meaningless and invalid release from her sacrament with Andreas. Having once made up her mind to desert her husband and follow her own heart, in spite of ultimate consequences, it seemed to her almost foolish that Will should shrink on her account from the verdict of the world, when she herself did not shrink – so great was her love – from the wrath of heaven and eternal punishment.
But, as she sat there and ruminated, it began gradually to dawn upon her that in some ways Will was right; even if she sinned boldly and openly, as she was prepared to sin, before Our Lady and the Saints, it might be well for her immediate comfort and happiness to keep up appearances before English society. Perhaps it was desirable for the next few days, till the talk blew over, to go, as Will said, under some married woman’s protection. But what married woman? Not that calmly terrible Mrs Sartoris, at any rate. She dreaded Will’s sister, more even than she dreaded the average middle-aged British matron. She knew how Maud would treat her, if she took her in at all; better anything at that moment of volcanic passion than the cold and cutting repose, the icy calmness of the British matron’s unemotional demeanour.
As Linnet was sitting there with her face in her hands, longing for Will’s return, and half-doubting in her own heart whether she had done quite right, even from her own heart’s standpoint, in coming straight away to him – Florian Wood, in a faultless frock-coat, with a moss-rose in his buttonhole, strolled by himself in a lazy mood down Piccadilly. It was Florian’s way to lounge through life, and he was lounging as usual. He pulled out his watch. Hullo! time for dinner! Now, Florian was always a creature of impulse. He hesitated for a moment, with cane poised in his dainty hand, which of three courses to pursue that lay open before him. Should he drop into the Savile for his evening meal; should he go home by himself to Grosvenor Gardens; or should he take pot-luck with Will Deverill in Duke Street? Bah! the dinner at the Savile’s a mere bad table d’hôte. At home, he would be lonely with a solitary chop. The social instinct within him impelled him at once to seek for society with his old friend in St James’s.
He opened the door for himself, for he had a latch-key that fitted it. In the hall, Ellen was seated, and the man-servant of the house was standing by and flirting with her. “Mr Deverill’s not at home, sir,” he said, with a hurried start, as Florian entered.
“Never mind,” the Epicurean philosopher replied, with his bland, small smile. “Pretty girl on the chair there. He’s coming back to dinner, I suppose, at the usual hour. Very well, that’s right; I’ll go up and wait for him. You can tell Mrs Watts to lay covers for two. I purpose to dine here.”
“Beg your pardon, sir,” the man said, placing himself full in front of Florian’s delicate form, so as to half-block the passage; “there’s a lady upstairs.” He hesitated, and simpered. “I rather think,” he continued, very doubtful how to proceed, “Mr Deverill wished nobody to go up till he came back again. Leastways, I had orders.”
“Why, it’s Signora Casalmonte!” Florian broke in, interrupting him; for he recognised the pretty girl on a second glance as the housemaid at Linnet’s. An expansive smile diffused itself over his close-shaven face. This was indeed a discovery! Linnet come to Will Deverill’s! And with a portmanteau, too! – Will, whose stern morality had read him so many pretty lectures on conduct in the Tyrol. And Linnet – that devout Catholic, so demure, so immaculate, the very pink of public singers, the pure flower of the stage! Who on earth would have believed it? But there, it’s these quiet souls who are always the deepest! While Florian himself, for all his talk, how innocent he was, how harmless, how free from every taint of guile, wile, or deception! What reconciled him to life, as he grew older every day, was the thought that, after all, ’twas so very amusing.
The man hesitated still more. “I don’t think you must go up, sir,” he said, still barring the way, “Mr Deverill told me if Hare Houseberger called, to say he wasn’t at home to him.”
Florian’s face was a study. It rippled over with successive waves of stifled laughter. But Ellen, with feminine quickness, saw the error of the man’s clumsy male intelligence. It would never do for Mr Wood, that silver-tongued man-about-town to go away and explain at every club in London how he’d caught the Casalmonte, with her maid and her portmanteau, on a surreptitious visit to Will Deverill’s chambers. Better far he should go up and see the Signora herself. Principals, in such cases, should invent their own lies, untrammelled by their subordinates. The Signora might devise what excuse she thought best to keep Florian’s mouth shut; and Will himself might come back before long to corroborate it.
“No, no,” she said hastily, with much evident artlessness. “You can go up, sir, of course. The Signora’s just waiting to see Mr Deverill.”
Florian brushed past the man with a spring, and ran lightly up the stairs, with quite as much agility as so small a body can be expected to compass. He burst into the room unannounced. Linnet rose, in very obvious dismay, to greet him. She was taken aback, Florian could see – and glad indeed he was to notice it. This little contretemps was clearly the wise man’s opportunity. Providential, providential! He grasped her hand with warmth, printing a delicate little squeeze on the soft bit of muscle between thumb and fingers. “What, Linnet!” he cried, “alone, and in Will Deverill’s rooms! How lucky I am to catch you! This is really delightful!”
Linnet sank back in her chair. She hardly knew what to say, how to cover her confusion. But excuse herself she must; some portion at least of what had passed she must explain to him. In a faltering voice, with many pauses and hesitations, she told him a faint outline of what had happened that day – her quarrel with Andreas, his cruel treatment, how he had struck her and hurt her, how she had fled from him precipitately. She hinted to him even in her most delicate way some dim suggestion of her husband’s letter to Philippina. Florian stroked himself and smiled; he nodded wisely. “We knew all that before,” he put in at last, with a knowing little air of sagacious innuendo. “We knew Friend Hausberger’s little ways. Though, how quiet he kept over them! A taciturn Don Juan! a most prudent Lothario!” It was the wise man’s cue now to set Linnet still further against her husband.
“So I left him,” Linnet went on simply, with transparent naïveté; “I left him, and came away, just packing a few clothes into my portmanteau, hurriedly. I didn’t know where to go, so I came straight to Mr Deverill’s. He was always a good friend of mine, you know, was Mr Deverill.” She paused, and blushed. “I’ve sent him out,” she continued, with a little pardonable deviation from the strictest veracity, “to see if he can find me some house among his friends – some English lady’s – where I can stop for the present, till I know what I mean to do, now I’ve come away from Andreas. He’s going to his sister’s first, to see if she can take me in; after that, if she can’t, he’s going to look about elsewhere.”
She gazed up at him timidly. She felt, as she spoke, Will was right after all. How could she brave the whole world’s censure, openly and frankly expressed, if she shrank so instinctively from the prying gaze of that one man, Florian? God, who reads all hearts, would know, if she sinned, she sinned for true love; but the world – that hateful world – Linnet leant back in her seat and shut her eyes with horror.
As for Florian, however, he seized the occasion with avidity. He saw his chance now. He was all respectful sympathy. The man Hausberger was a wretch who had never been fit for her; he had entrapped her by fraud; she did right to leave him. What horrid marks on her arm, and on that soft brown neck of hers! Did the cur do that? What a creature, to lay hands on so divine a woman! Though, of course, it was unwise of her to come round to Will’s; the world – and here Florian assumed his most virtuously sympathetic expression of face – the world is so cruel, so suspicious, so censorious. For themselves, they two moved on a higher plane; they saw through the conventions and restrictions of society. Still, it was always well to respect the convenances. Mrs Sartoris! Oh, dear, no! unsympathetic, out of touch with her! And yet, oh, how dangerous to stop here in these rooms one moment longer. With dexterous little side hints the wise man worked upon Linnet’s fears insensibly. That fellow in the passage, now – the people of the house – so unwise, so uncertain; who could tell friend from enemy?
As he spoke, Linnet grew every moment more and more uneasy. “I wish Will would come back!” she cried. “I wish I had somewhere to go! It makes me so afraid, you see – this delay, this uncertainty.”
Florian played a trump card boldly. “Why not come off with me at once, then,” he suggested, “to my sister’s?”
“Your sister’s?” Linnet asked. “But I didn’t know you had one!”
Florian waved his hand airily, with a compulsive gesture, as if he could call sisters to command from the vasty deep, in any required quantity – as indeed was the case. “Oh dear, yes,” he answered. “She hasn’t been long in town. She – er – she lives mostly in Brittany.” He paused for a second to give his fancy free play. Ah, happy thought! just so! – a clergyman’s wife would be the very thing for the purpose. “Her husband’s chaplain at Dinan,” he went on, with his bland smile, romancing readily. “She doesn’t often come over. She’s not well off, poor dear; but this year she’s taken a house for the season.. in Pimlico. You might go round there, at least, while you’re waiting for Will. It’s less compromising than this; and we could leave a note behind to tell him where he could find you.”
Linnet debated internally. Florian paused, and looked judicial. “What sort of person is she?” Linnet asked at last, hesitating. “Kind – nice – sympathetic?”
“You’ve summed her up in one word!” Florian answered with a flourish. “Sympathetic – that’s just it; she’s bubbling over with sympathy. She goes out to all troubled souls. Though I’m her own brother, and therefore naturally prejudiced against her, I never knew anyone so intensely capable of throwing herself forth towards other people as my sister Marian. She’s the exact antipodes of that unspeakable Sartoris woman; human, human, human, above all things human; she brims and overflows with the milk of human kindness! And she took such a fancy to you, too, when she saw you one night, in Cophetua’s Adventure. She said to me, ‘O Florian, do you think she’d come and stay with us? I’d give anything to know that sweet creature personally.’ I told her, of course, you never stayed with anybody under the rank of a crowned head or a millionaire soap-boiler. She was quite disappointed, and she’d be only too delighted now, I’m sure, if she could be of any service to you.”
He looked at her hard. He had provided a sister, mentally. As a matter of fact, he knew a lady – a most obliging lady – tolerably reputable, too – in a side street in Pimlico, who would be willing (for a slight consideration) to take Linnet in, and adopt any relation she was told to Florian. Once get a married woman (and a singer-body at that) away from her husband, into a house of your own choosing, and – given agreeable manners and a persuasive tongue – you can do before long pretty much what you like with her. So, at least, Florian’s philosophy had always instructed him. He chuckled to himself to think pure chance should have enabled him thus to anticipate Will Deverill. And if Will was playing this game, this simple little game, why on earth shouldn’t he play it too, and outwit his rival?
He went on to expatiate very enthusiastically to Linnet on the imaginary sister’s sympathetic virtues. In a few minutes he had made her so absolutely charming – for he was a fluent talker – that at last Linnet, who, like all Tyrolese, was impulsive at heart, jumped up from her seat and exclaimed with a sudden burst, “Very well, then; I’ll go there. It’s safer there than here. We can leave a line for Will to let him have the address. I’ll sit down and write it.”
“No, no,” Florian cried, eagerly, seizing a pen in haste. “I’ll write it myself. Then we’ll take a cab outside, and go round there together.”
For if once Linnet was seen with him in a hansom in the street – after leaving her husband – her fate was sealed. She might as well do what all the world would immediately say she was bent on doing.
CHAPTER XLV
BY AUTHORITY
As Florian sat there, scribbling off a few lines of apology for their hasty departure, the door opened of a sudden – and Will Deverill entered.
Florian rose, a little abashed – though, to be sure, it took a good deal to abash Florian. He stood by the desk, hesitating, with his unfinished letter dangling idly in his hand, while he debated inwardly what plausible lie he could invent on the spur of the moment and palm off to excuse himself. But before he could make up his mind to a suitable story, Linnet – that impulsive southern Linnet – had rushed forward, all eager, with her own version of the episode. “O Will,” she cried, spoiling all by her frank avowal, “I’m so glad you’ve come at last! I couldn’t bear to wait here in doubt any longer; and Florian’s so kind: he was just going to take me off for the night to his sister’s!”
Will turned from her and gazed at Florian for a brief space in blank surprise. Then, as by degrees it dawned upon him what this treachery really meant, his face changed little by little to one of shocked and horrified incredulity. “Florian,” he said, in a very serious voice, “come out here into the passage. This thing must be explained. I want to speak with you.”
Florian followed him on to the landing, hardly knowing what he did. Will’s eye was cold and stern. “Now, look here,” he said, frigidly, fixing his man with his icy gaze, “it’s no use lying to me. I know as well as you do, you’ve got no sister.”
Florian smiled imperturbable. “Well, no,” he said, blandly; “but – I thought I might improvise one.”
Will took him in at a glance. He pointed with one hand to the stairs, impressively, “Go! without another word,” he said. “You’ve behaved like a cad. Instead of trying to save and help this poor girl, you’ve concocted a vile plan in my absence to ruin her.”
Florian turned to him, cynically. “You were looking out for a house to take her to yourself,” he answered. “I don’t suppose you meant to return her to her husband. If you may do it, why not I as well? Two can play at that game, you know. It’s quits between us. You needn’t pretend to such high morality at the very moment when you’re engaged in enticing another man’s wife away from her husband.”
Will didn’t deign any further to bandy words with the fellow. “Go!” he said, once more, pointing sternly to the doorway. Florian turned on his heel, and slunk down the stairs, as jauntily as he could, but looking for all that just a trifle disconcerted. Will leant over the banisters, as he went, with a sudden afterthought. “And if ever you dare to say anything to anyone on earth about having seen Linnet here, at my rooms, to-night,” he called out, very pointedly, “I shall think you, if possible, even a greater cad than I think you now, and not hesitate to say so.”
He returned to Linnet in his sitting-room. He wouldn’t speak before her to Florian because he couldn’t bear she should even suspect how bad an opinion the man had had of her, and what plot he had laid for her.
“You shall go round to Mrs Palmer’s, Linnet,” he said, taking her hand in his. “The place Florian spoke of isn’t at all the right place for a girl like you. But Rue will receive you like a sister till we can arrange some other plan for you. At her house, you’ll be safe from every whisper of scandal.”
“You’ll take me there, won’t you?” Linnet inquired, gazing wistfully at him.
On that point, however, Will was firm as a rock. “No, dearest,” he answered, laying one hand on her full round arm, persuasively. “You must go there alone, with only your maid. It’s better so. Rue has a friend or two coming in to dine with her to-night. They’ll see you arrive at her door by yourself; and if any talk comes of it, they’ll know how to answer it.”
Linnet flung herself upon him once more, in a last clinging embrace. She was wildly in love with him. Will pressed her hard to his heart; then he gently disengaged himself, and led her to the door. A cab was in waiting – the cab that brought him there. Linnet got into it at once, and drove off with Ellen. In twenty minutes more, she was in Rue’s pretty drawing-room.
That night, when all the rest were gone, she and Rue sat up long and late, talking together earnestly. Their talk was of Will. Linnet didn’t try to conceal from her new friend how much she loved him. Rue listened sympathetically, suppressing her own heart, so that Linnet ceased even to remember to herself how she had thought once of the grand lady as her most dangerous rival.
But all the time, Rue preached to her one line of action alone: “You must get a divorce, of course, dear, and marry Will Deverill.” And all the time, Linnet shook her head, and answered through her tears, “A divorce to me is a mockery and a delusion. I’d rather stop with him openly, and defy the world and the Church together, than affront my God by pretending to marry him, when I know in my heart Andreas Hausberger is and must always be my one real husband.”
At last they went to bed. Neither slept much that evening. Linnet thought about Will; Rue thought about Linnet. As things now stood, Rue would give much to help them. Since Will loved this woman far more than he loved her, she wished indeed Linnet might be freed at last from that hateful man, and they two might somehow be happy together. Only the Church stood in the way – that implacable Church, with its horrible dogma of indissoluble marriage.
Next day, Linnet spent very quietly at Rue’s. Will never came near the house; but he wrote round a long and earnest letter to Linnet, urging her with all the force and persuasiveness he knew to go down that night as usual to the theatre. It was best, he said, in order to avoid a scandal, that she should appear to have left her unworthy husband on grounds of his own misconduct alone, and be anxious to fulfil in every other way all her ordinary engagements.
Linnet went, sick at heart. She hardly knew how she was to get through Carmen. But when she saw Will’s face in a box at the side, watching her with eager anxiety, she plucked up heart, and, fired by her own excitement, sang her part in that stirring romance as she had never before sung it. She rushed at her Toreador as she would have rushed at Will Deverill. At times, too, as in the cigar factory scene, she was defiant with a wonderful and life-like defiance; for she marked another face in the stalls before her – Andreas Hausberger’s hard face, gazing up at his flown bird with intense determination. Rue had come to see her through. At the end of the performance, Rue waited at the door for her. Will passed by, and spoke casually just a few simple words of friendly congratulation on her splendid performance; then she drove away, flushed, to Hans Place, in Rue’s carriage.
It didn’t escape her notice, however, that, as she stepped in, Andreas Hausberger stood behind, with his hand on the door of their own hired brougham. As Linnet drove off, he leaned forward to the coachman. “Follow the green livery,” he called out in so loud a voice that Linnet overheard it. When they drew up at Rue’s door, he was close behind them. But he noted the number, that was all; he had been there before, indeed, to Rue’s Sunday afternoons, and only wished to make sure of the house, and that Linnet was stopping there. “Drive on home,” he called to the man; and disappeared in the distance. Linnet looked after him and shuddered. She knew what that meant; and she trembled at the thought. He would come back to fetch her.
She was a Catholic still. If he came and bid her follow him – her lawful husband – how could she dare refuse him?
All that night long, she lay awake and prayed, torturing her pure soul with many doubts and terrors. In the lone hours of early morning, ghastly fears beset her. The anger of Heaven seemed to thunder in her ears; the flames of Hell rose up to take hold of her. She would give her very life to go back again to Will; and the nether abyss yawned wide its fiery mouth to receive her as she thought it. She would go back to Will, let what would, come; – but she knew it was wrong; she knew it was wicked; she knew it was the deadly, unspeakable sin; she knew she must answer before the throne of God for it.
Oh, how could she confess it, even to her own parish priest! How ask for penance, absolution, blessing, when she meant in her heart to live, if she could, every day of her life in unholy desire or unholy union! O God, God, God, how could she face his anger!
She rose next morning, very pale and haggard. Rue tried to console her. But no Protestant consolation could touch those inner chords of her ingrained nature. Strange to say, all those she loved and trusted most were of the alien creed; and in these her deepest doubts and fears and troubles they could give her no comfort. About eleven o’clock came a knock at the door. Linnet sat in the breakfast-room; she heard a sound of feet on the staircase hard by – two men being shown up, as she guessed, into the drawing-room.
The servant brought down two cards. Linnet looked at them with a sinking heart. One was Andreas Hausberger’s; the other bore the name of her London confessor, a German-speaking priest of the pro-Cathedral at Kensington.
She passed them to Rue with a sigh. “I may go up with you?” Rue cried, for she longed to protect her.
But Linnet shrank back. “Oh no, dear,” she answered, shaking her head very solemnly. “How I wish you could come! You could sit and hold my hand. It would do me so much good. But this is a visit of religion. My priest wouldn’t like it.”
She went upstairs with a bold step, but with a throbbing heart. Rue followed her anxiously, and took a chair on the landing. What happened next inside, she couldn’t hear in full, but undertones of it came wafted to her through the door indistinctly. There was a blur of sounds, among which Rue could distinguish Andreas Hausberger’s cold tone, not angry, indeed, but rather low and conciliatory; the priest’s sharp German voice, now inquiring, now chiding, now hortative, now minatory; and Linnet’s trembling speech, at first defiant, then penitently apologetic, at last awestruck and terrified. Rue leant forward to listen. She could just distinguish the note, but not the words. Linnet was speaking now very earnestly and solemnly. Then came a pause, and the priest spoke next – exhorting, threatening, denouncing, in fierce German gutturals. His voice was like the voice of the angry Church, reproving the sins of the flesh, the pride of the eyes, the lusts of the body. Linnet bowed her head, Rue felt sure, before that fierce denunciation. There was a noise of deep sobs, the low wail of a broken heart. Rue drew back, aghast. The Church was having its way. They had terrified Linnet.
For the first time in her life, the gentle-hearted American felt herself on the side of the sinners. She would have given anything just that moment to get Linnet away from those two dreadful men, and set her down unawares in Will’s chambers in Duke Street. She tried hard to open the door, but the key was turned. “Linnet, Linnet!” she cried, knocking loud, and calling the poor girl by her accustomed pet name, “let me in! I want to speak to you!”
“No, dear; I can’t!” Linnet answered through the door, gulping down a great sob. “I must fight it out by myself. My sin; my punishment.”
The voices went on again, a little lower for a while. Then sobs came thick and fast. Linnet was crying bitterly. Rue strained her ear to hear; she couldn’t catch a single syllable. The priest seemed to be praying, as she thought, – praying in Latin. Then Linnet appeared to answer. For more than an hour together they wrestled with one another. At the end of that time, the tone of the priest’s voice changed. It was mild; it was gracious. In an agony of horror, Rue realised what that meant. She felt sure he must be pronouncing or promising absolution.
So Linnet must have confessed! – must have renounced her sin! – must have engaged to go back and live with that man Andreas!
Right or wrong, crime or shame, Rue would have given ten thousand pounds that moment – to take her back to Will Deverill’s.
As Rue thought that thought, the door opened at last, and the three came forth right before her on the landing.
Andreas and the priest wore an air of triumph. Linnet walked out in front of them, red-eyed, dejected, miserable. The Church had won; but, O God, what a victory!
Rue sprang at her and seized her hand. “Linnet, Linnet!” she cried agonised, “don’t tell me you’ve let these two men talk you over! Don’t tell me you’re going back to that dreadful man! Don’t tell me you’re going to give up Will Deverill for such a creature!”
Linnet fell upon her neck, weeping. “Rue, Rue, dear Rue,” she sobbed out, heart-broken, and half beside herself with love and religious terror, “it is not to him that I yield, O lieber Gott, not to him, but to the Church’s orders.”
“But you mustn’t!” Rue cried, aghast, and undeterred by the frowning priest. “You must stop here with me, and get a divorce, and marry him!” And she flung herself upon her.
“There! what did I say?” Andreas interposed, with a demonstrative air, turning round to the man of God. “I told you I must take her away from London at once, at all costs, at all hazards – if you didn’t want her to fall into deadly sin, and the Church to lose its hold over her soul altogether.”
The priest looked at Rue with a most disapproving eye. “Madam,” he said, curtly, in somewhat German English, “with exceeding great difficulty have I rescued this erring daughter from the very brink of mortal sin – happily, as yet unconsummated; and now, will you, a married woman yourself, who know what all this means, drive her back from her husband into the arms of her lover?”
“Yes, yes; I will!” Rue cried boldly – and, oh, how Linnet admired her for it! “I will! I will! I’ll drive her back to Will Deverill! Anything to get her away from that man whom she hates! Anything to get her back to the other whom she loves! Linnet, Linnet, come away from them! Come up with me to my bedroom!”
But Linnet drew back, trembling. “Yes, yes; I hate him!” she wailed out passionately, looking across at her husband. “I hate him! Oh, I hate him! And yet, I will go with him. Not for him, but for the Church! Oh, I hate him! I hate him!”
The priest turned to Andreas. “I absolved her too soon, perhaps,” he said, in German. “Her penitence is skin-deep. She is still rebellious. Quick, quick, hurry her off from this sinful adviser. You’ll do well, as you say, to get her away as soon as you can – clear away from London. It’s no place for her, I’m sure, so long as this man.. and his friends and allies.. are here to tempt her.”
Rue clung hard to her still. “Linnet, dear,” she cried, coaxingly, “come up to my room! You’re not going with them, are you?”
“Yes; I am, dear,” Linnet sobbed out, in a heart-broken tone. “Oh, how good you are! – how sweet to me! But I must go. They have conquered me.”
“Then I’ll go round this very minute,” Rue burst forth through her tears, “and tell Will what they’re doing to you. If it was me, I’d defy them and their Church to their faces. I’ll go round and tell Will – and Will’ll come and rescue you!”
The priest motioned Linnet hastily with one hand down the stairs. “Sie haben recht, Herr Hausberger,” he murmured low. “Apage retro, Satanas! With temptations like these besetting her path, we shall be justified in hurrying away this poor weak lamb of our flock from the very brink of a precipice that so threatens to fall with her.”