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'If it would give me pleasure,' the priest said, 'you would not show it me.'

'I would not,' she said.

A silhouette in the doorway, she halted, drooping, and looked over her shoulder.

'Both you and mother,' she said, 'sit there scheming to make life bearable for the Ox. I call my husband the Ox. He's repulsive: like a swollen animal. Well...you can't do it.' The lighted doorway was vacant. Father Consett sighed.

'I told you this was an evil place,' he said. 'In the deep forests. She'd not have such evil thoughts in another place.' Mrs Satterthwaite said:

'I'd rather you didn't say that, Father. Sylvia would have evil thoughts in any place.'

'Sometimes,' the priest said, 'at night I think I hear the claws of evil things scratching on the shutters. This was the last place in Europe to be Christianised. Perhaps it wasn't ever even Christianised and they're here yet.'

Mrs Satterthwaite said:

'It's all very well to talk like that in the day-time. It makes the place seem romantic. But it must be near one at night. And things are bad enough as it is.'