‘I don’t know why you did what you did on New Year’s Eve but I tell you this, you’ll live to regret it. It wasn’t a mistake on your part – you knew exactly what you were doing and the consequences. Oh, not the bairn, even you couldn’t have planned that, but you wanted to spoil what me and Adam had, that’s the truth of it. And all this talk of repentance that Father McHaffie was on about, I don’t believe a word of it.’

‘You shouldn’t have spoken to him like that, hinny.’

Cissy’s voice caused Ruby’s gaze to swing from her sister to her mother.

‘How can you say that after what she’s done?’

‘He’s a priest, lass.’

‘I don’t care. He’s still just a man.’

‘Ruby!’

‘Well, he is.’ Ruby stared defiantly at her mother. For some time now she had been having thoughts about the way Father McHaffie scared the wits out of everyone and acted like God Himself, especially when he gave his fire-and-brimstone sermons about the damnation of non-Catholics. Mrs Walton wasn’t a Catholic, but a kinder and better person you couldn’t wish to meet. And there were other things too, such as the way he threatened his flock with purgatory every Sunday and demanded unquestioning obedience and acceptance of everything he said. She had tried to talk about it with Adam but he always changed the subject or said, much as her mother had done, that Father McHaffie was a priest as though that ended any discussion.

Before Ruby’s eyes there rose a picture of Adam as he had looked walking away down the lane, and now she turned to Olive again, her eyes narrowed and her hands clenched. ‘You’re evil, that’s what you are. You were determined to ruin my life, weren’t you? And to trick Adam like that – you’re beyond contempt.’

Olive stood up and now there was no trace of the penitent about her when she hissed, ‘It takes two to make a bairn. I don’t know why you’re putting all the blame on me.’

‘Because Adam told me how it happened and I believe him.’

‘Of course you do. You’d hate to believe he could like someone besides you, wouldn’t you?’