‘There are times when it should,’ Father Consett said contemptuously.
‘You don’t seriously,’ Mrs Satterthwaite said, ‘say that I, a mother, if an indifferent one, with my daughter appearing in trouble, as the kitchenmaids say, by a married man—that I should step in and stop a marriage that was a Godsend…’
‘Don’t,’ the priest said, ‘introduce the sacred name into an affair of Piccadilly bad girls…’ He stopped. ‘Heaven help me,’ he said again, ‘don’t ask me to answer the question of what you should or shouldn’t have done. You know I loved your husband like a brother, and you know I’ve loved you and Sylvia ever since she was tiny. And I thank God that I am not your spiritual adviser, but only your friend in God. For if I had to answer your question I could answer it only in one way.’ He bro
