“I have wanted to see you so much,” she began hurriedly.  “There is a great deal I want to tell you.  But perhaps you have no time now.”

“My dear child, I have ample time, I am only too pleased to be of service to you.  I am afraid you are in trouble, you look quite ill.”

The kindness of the voice filled her eyes with tears, and she understood in a moment the relief it would be to tell her troubles to this kind friend; to feel his kind advice allaying them one by one, and to know that the sleepless solitude in which she had tried to grapple with them was over at last.  To give her time to recover herself, Monsignor spoke of a letter he had received that morning from the Superior of the Passionist Convent.

“I will not trouble you with her repeated thanks for what you have done for her.  She begs me to tell you that she and the sisters unite in inviting you to spend a few days with them.  They suggest that you should choose your own time.”

“Oh, Monsignor, how can I go and stay with them!  I thought I should have died of shame when I went there after the concert with you.  Mother Philippa asked me if I had travelled with my father when I went abroad.  You must remember, for you came to my assistance.”

“I turned the conversation, seeing that it embarrassed you.”

“But you must have guessed.”

“On account of your father’s position at St. Joseph’s, I had heard of you....  I had heard of your intimacy with Sir Owen Asher, and the life of an opera singer is not one to which a good Catholic can easily reconcile herself.”

As they sat on either side of the table, Evelyn was attracted, and then absorbed, by the distinctive appearance of the priest.  His mind was in his face.  The long, high forehead, with black hair growing sparely upon it; the small, brilliant eyes, and the long, firm line of the jaw, now distinct, for the head was turned almost in profile.  The face was a perfect symbol of the mind behind it; and the intimate concurrence of the appearance and the thought was the reason of its attractiveness.  It was the beauty of unity; here was a man whose ideas are so deeply rooted that they express themselves in his flesh.  In him there was nothing floating or undecided; and in the line of the thin, small mouth and the square nostrils, Evelyn divined a perfect certainty on all points.  In this way she was attracted to his spiritual guidance, and desired the support of his knowledge, as she had desired Ulick’s knowledge when she was studying Isolde.  Ulick’s technical knowledge had been useful to her; upon it she had raised herself, through it she had attained her idea.  And in the same way Monsignor’s knowledge on all points of doctrine would free her from doubt.  Then she would be able to rise above the degradation of earthly passion to that purer and higher passion, the love of God.  Doctrine she did not love for its own sake as Monsignor loved it.  She regarded it as the musician regards crotchets and quavers, as a means of expression; and she now felt that without doctrine she could not acquire the love which she desired; without doctrine she could not free herself from the bondage of the flesh, and every moment the temptation to give her soul into his keeping grew more irresistible.  Rising from her chair, she said—­