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 The baron did as he was desired, and looked at his mother, waiting for her to begin.

“Are you ready? Well, then, write—

“‘Your Grace, Very Reverend Sir’”

“Oh! this is an unusual letter, I see—to the bishop himself. It is written. Go on.”

“‘Your most humble servant takes the liberty of applying to you for help and direction in a very delicate matter, convinced that she will be heard, and that your apostolic kindness and justice will provide for her the necessary satisfaction, although, in addressing herself directly to your Grace, she passes over, from serious reasons, the first ecclesiastical court—the episcopal vicariate. The matter concerns a parish priest under my patronage—Father Václav Cvok, in Záluz̓í.’”

The baron’s hand began to tremble as he wrote this. His mother noticed it well, and a new pallor overspread her features. Mundy did not lift his eyes from the paper, though the baroness was silent for a good while after he had finished.

“Is that much written?” she asked.

“It is,” answered Mundy, in a low voice.

“Then go on. ‘This same priest forgot himself so far as to live with the late companion of my daughter—a young woman of the name of Jenny Kuc̓erová—in a sinful and scandalous connection; which has not been without consequences’”

All Baron Mundy’s blood rushed to his head; the pen fell from his hand upon the paper, and he cried imploringly, “For God’s sake stop!”

“And why should I stop?”

“Because—you are writing a lie!”

“A lie! Are you perhaps better informed about this