’All you tell me, Father O’Grady, frightens me.  I discovered my suspicions to you in my letters, but I can express myself better in talking than on paper—­far better.  It is only now that I realize how wrongly I acted towards this young woman.  I was frightened in a measure before, but the reality of my guilt has never appeared so distinctly to me till now.  You have revealed it to me, and I’m thinking now of what account I could give to God were I to die to-morrow.  “Thou hast caused a soul to be lost,” he would say.  “The sins of the flesh are transitory like the flesh, the sins of the faith are deeper,” may be God’s judgment.  Father O’Grady, I’m frightened, frightened; my fear is great, and at this moment I feel like a man on his deathbed.  My agony is worse, for I’m in good health and can see clearly, whereas the dying man understands little.  The senses numb as death approaches.’

‘Have you spoken of the mistake you made in confession, Father Oliver?’

‘No, why should I?’ he answered, ’for none here would understand me.  But I’ll confess to you.  You may have been sent to hear me.  Who knows?  Who can say?’ and he dropped on his knees crying:  ’Can I be forgiven if that soul be lost to God?  Tell me if such a sin can be forgiven?’

‘We must not fall into the sin of despair,’ Father O’Grady answered.  And he murmured the Latin formula Absolve te, etc., making the sign of the cross over the head of his penitent.  For a while after the priests knelt together in prayer, and it was with a feeling that his burden had been lifted from him that Father Oliver rose from his knees, and, subdued in body and mind, stood looking through the room, conscious of the green grass showing through his window, lighted by a last ray of the setting sun.  It was the wanness of this light that put the thought into his mind that it would soon be time to send round to the stables for his visitor’s car.  His visitor!  That small, frail man sitting in his armchair would soon be gone, carrying with him this, Father Oliver’s, confession.  What had he confessed?  Already he had forgotten, and both men stood face to face thinking of words wherewith they might break the silence.

‘I do not know,’ Father O’Grady said, ’that I altogether share your fear that an anti-Christian atmosphere necessarily implies that the Catholic who comes into it will lose her faith, else faith would not be a pure gift from God.  God doesn’t overload his creatures unbearably, nor does he put any stress upon them from which they cannot extricate themselves.  I could cite many instances of men and women whose faith has been strengthened by hostile criticism; the very arguments that have been urged against their faith have forced them to discover other arguments, and in this way they have been strengthened in their Catholic convictions.’  And to Father Oliver’s question if he discerned any other influence except an intellectual influence in Mr. Poole, he answered that he had not considered this side of the question.