The scent of warm bread rose from a basket on the table as Rutledge took his chair next to the window.

“I have it on the best authority,” Monsignor Holston was saying. “This is one of the tallest loaves ever to come out of her ovens.”

“I’ve had no complaint about the food here,” Rutledge agreed. “I don’t see how she manages the hotel without more help. I’ve seen a maid upstairs a time or two, and there’s someone in the kitchens to do the scullery work. But Mrs. Barnett appears to do most everything else. She’s a widow, I think?”

“Her husband was quite a gifted man. He could turn his hand to anything—and it would flourish. But Barnett died just before the War, of a gangrenous wound. A horse stepped on his foot, and infection set in. They amputated the foot, then the leg, and in the end couldn’t do anything to save him. She watched him die by inches, and nursed him herself.”

“Did you know him?”

“As a matter of fact, I did. He’d been hired by Father James for work on the rectory, and I’d approved the cost at the Bishop’s request. Barnett was working there when he was injured.”

“You seem to know the parish here rather well. Are you equally knowledgeable about all of them?”

“No more than most. Old churches and rectories require an enormous level of upkeep, and while the local priest does as much as he can, the diocese has to fund many of the major repairs. Which means that I inspect and report, approve agreements, and pay the workmen.” He grimaced. “A far cry from the office of priesthood I prefer. That’s why I’m under consideration for St. Anne’s, because I’ve asked to serve a church again.”

Dishes of hot soup arrived on the tray Mrs. Barnett held aloft, and she set them before the two men with an unobtrusive grace. Vegetable, Rutledge decided, in a rich beef broth. He realized he was ravenous.

Cutting through the crisp crust of the loaf of bread, Rutledge said, “Did Father James find his parish troublesome? That’s to say, the kinds of problems he had to deal with here? I should think it would vary from church to church.”

“Human nature is human nature, everywhere. Still, this was once a rich parish, and now it’s not. The kinds of problems shift with the economic balance.”

“Give me an example.”

Monsignor Holston was suddenly uneasy. After some seconds, he began slowly, “A priest counsels broken marriages and intercedes in disputes. Sometimes he has to take sides, and that’s never simple. He tries to set the moral character of his parish; he keeps an eye on wayward children. God knows there are enough of those, thanks to the War.”

“Which tells me he knows the secrets of dozens of people.”