my father's visit, and sent out
invitations to all "the insular gentry" included in the lists which came
from Nessy MacLeod in her stiff and formal handwriting.

These lists came morning after morning, until the invitations issued
reached the grand total of five hundred.

As the rooms of the Castle were not large enough to accommodate so many
guests, Alma proposed to erect a temporary pavilion. My father agreed,
and within a week hundreds of workmen from Blackwater were setting up a
vast wooden structure, in the form of the Colosseum, on the headlands
beyond the garden where Martin and I had walked together.

While the work went on my father's feverish pride seemed to increase. I
heard of messages to Alma saying that no money was to be spared. The
reception was to surpass in grandeur any fete ever held in Ellan. Not
knowing what high stakes my father was playing for, I was frightened by
this extravagance, and from that cause alone I wished to escape from the
sight of it.

I could not escape.

I felt sure that Alma hated me with an implacable hatred, and that she
was trying to drive me away, thinking that would be the easiest means to
gain her own ends. For this reason, among others, the woman in me would
not let me fly, so I remained and went through a purgatory of suffering.

Price, too, who had reconciled herself to my revelation, was always
urging me to remain, saying:

"Why should you go, my lady? You are your husband's wife, aren't you?
Fight it out, I say. Ladies do so every day. Why shouldn't you?"

Before long the whole island seemed to be astir about our reception.
Every day the insular newspapers devoted columns to the event, giving
elaborate accounts of what limitless wealth could accomplish for a
single night's entertainment. In these descriptions there was much
eulogy of my father as "the uncrowned king of Ellan," as well as praise
of Alma, who was "displaying such daring originality," but little or no
mention of myself.

Nevertheless everybody seemed to understand the inner meaning of the
forthcoming reception, and in the primitive candour of our insular
manners some of the visits I received were painfully embarrassing.

One of the first to come was my father's advocate, Mr. Curphy, who
smiled his usual bland smile and combed his long beard while he thanked
me for acting on his advice not to allow a fit of pique to break up a
marriage which was so suitable from points of property and position.