"I do doubt. What thinking man doesn't? That's why at times I'm empty." He looked beyond her, at something she couldn't see. "Do you know, I think I'd give up every ambition, every desire in me, for the chance to be a perfect priest?"

  "Perfection in anything," she said, "is unbearably dull. Myself, I prefer a touch of imperfection."

  He laughed, looking at her in admiration tinged with envy. She was a remarkable woman.

  Her widowhood was thirty-three years old and her only child, a son, had died in infancy. Because of her peculiar status in the Gillanbone community she had not availed herself of any of the overtures made to her by the more ambitious males of her acquaintance; as Michael Carson's widow she was indisputably a queen, but as someone's wife she passed control "of all she had to that someone. Not Mary Carson's idea of living, to play second fiddle. So she had abjured the flesh, preferring to wield power; it was inconceivable that she should take a lover, for when it came to gossip Gillanbone was as receptive as a wire to an electrical current. To prove herself human and weak was not a part of her obsession.

  But now she was old enough to be officially beyond the drives of the body. If the new young priest was assiduous in his duties to her and she rewarded him with little gifts like a car, it was not at all incongruous. A staunch pillar of the Church all her life, she had supported her parish and its spiritual leader in fitting fashion even when Father Kelly had hiccupped his way through the Mass. She was not alone in feeling charitably inclined toward Father Kelly's successor; Father Ralph de Bricassart was deservedly popular with every member of his flock, rich or poor. If his more remote parishioners could not get into Gilly to see him, he went to them, and until Mary Carson had given him his car he had gone on horseback. His patience and kindness had brought him liking from all and sincere love from some; Martin King of Bugela had expensively refurnished the presbytery, Dominic O'Rourke of Dibban-Dibban paid the salary of a good housekeeper.

  So from the pedestal of her age and her position Mary Carson felt quite safe in enjoying Father Ralph; she liked matching her wits against a brain as intelligent as her own,