“Yes, Father.”

“You weary of the simplicity of your present life, and sigh for the brilliancy of the stage?”

“I’m afraid I do.”  It was thrilling to admit so much, especially as the life of an actress was not in itself sinful.  “I feel that I should die very soon if I were to hear I should never leave Dulwich.”

The priest did not speak for a long while, and raising her eyes she watched his expression.  It seemed to her that her confession of her desire of the world had recalled memories, and she wondered what were they.

“I am more than forty—­I’m nearly fifty—­and my life has passed like a dream.”

He seemed about to tell her the secret of life, and had stopped.  But the phrase lingered through her whole life, and eventually became part of it.  “My life has passed like a dream.”  She did not remember what he had said after, and she had gone away wondering if life seemed to everyone like a dream when they were forty, and if his life would have seemed more real to him if he had given it to the world instead of to God?  Her subsequent confessions seemed trite and commonplace.  Not that Father Railston failed to listen with kind interest to her; not that he failed to divine that she was passing through a physical and spiritual crisis.  His admonitions were comforting in her weariness of mind and body; but notwithstanding her affection for him, she felt that beyond that one phrase he had no influence over her.  She almost felt that he was too gentle and indulgent, and the thought she would have liked a confessor who was severe, who would have inflicted heavier penances, compelled her to fast and pray, who would have listened in deeper sternness to the sins of thought which she with averted face shamefully owned to having entertained.  She was disappointed that he did not warn her with the loss of her soul, that he did not invent specious expedients for her use, whereby the Evil One might be successfully checked.

One Sunday morning the servant told Mr. Innes that Miss Evelyn has left a little earlier, as she was going to Communion.  She remained in church for High Mass, and when chided for such long abstinence, she smiled sadly and said that she did not think that it would do her much harm.  During the following week he noticed that she hardly touched breakfast, and the only reason she gave was that she thought she would like to fast.  No, she had not obtained leave from her confessor; she had not even consulted him.  She, of course, knew that she was not obliged to fast, not being of age; but she was not doing any work; she had no pupils; the concert had been postponed; she thought she would like to fast.  Father and daughter looked at each other; they felt that they did not understand, that there was nothing to be done, and Mr. Innes put his fiddle into its case and went to London, deeply concerned about his daughter, and utterly unable to arrive at any conclusion.