She sat down and began to try to select and arrange the words that would best describe her plight to Father Carey and win his sympathy. There was what she had to tell him, about Hubert, and what she had to ask him for, the money, and her reason for having to ask for the money, to get to John. She started her appeal to the priest one way, and then she started it another way. She put in more and more details to make her story more persuasive, and then she took out some of the details. She couldn’t make up her mind whether to end by asking for the money or to work the money in as she went along. The more she fumbled with the words, the more she became convinced that her story was lame and sounded suspicious. She hadn’t the ability to describe the scene that had just taken place between her and Hubert. A person would have had to be there, to have heard it, to believe it, and if a person had been there the scene would not have occurred. She was going to go to Father Carey and make a show of herself, that was plain. He would never believe her. He would think she was making it all up, or that she was making an excuse of some little incident to spite her husband and get to her son. In either case, he would disapprove. He would tell her to go back to her husband. He would say, “Mrs. Derdon, you must return home at once. And you must on no account go near your son. If you interrupt your son’s studies now, you may endanger his vocation.” She could hear the priest saying the same words over and over again, and she couldn’t hear him saying anything else. It was no use. He would never give her the money. She would have to find the money somewhere else, and there was no other place to go. But it would be useless to go to Father Carey. Worse than useless, even. He might get out of his car and take her back to Hubert and make her go into the house. He might side with Hubert against her. It was more than likely that he would.