“Oh, Father Denny,” cried the boy, suddenly, “I forgot to tell you!  Sister is not going away at night any more!  She told me so when she kissed me good night as she was leaving.  And she said she was so happy, and then she cried.  Wasn’t that queer?  But I’m glad; aren’t you?”

“Yes, lad.  And now, ye omadhaun, go to sleep, and say good night; we must be going.”

“Which shall I do first, Father Denny?”

“Faith, he’s caught me again!  Wait till I get the sassenach into the annals of Tageruach, the hagiographer; I’ll give him enough of the Irish idiom to make him more respectful.”

The light was out, and the small, brave voice bidding them good night from the dark room.  They groped downstairs, and tore away from the garrulity of Mother Geehan.

Again the priest steered them through the dim ways, but this time in another direction.  His conductor was serenely silent, and Lorison followed his example to the extent of seldom speaking.  Serene he could not be.  His heart beat suffocatingly in his breast.  The following of this blind, menacing trail was pregnant with he knew not what humiliating revelation to be delivered at its end.

They came into a more pretentious street, where trade, it could be surmised, flourished by day.  And again the priest paused; this time before a lofty building, whose great doors and windows in the lowest floor were carefully shuttered and barred.  Its higher apertures were dark, save in the third story, the windows of which were brilliantly lighted.  Lorison’s ear caught a distant, regular, pleasing thrumming, as of music above.  They stood at an angle of the building.  Up, along the side nearest them, mounted an iron stairway.  At its top was an upright, illuminated parallelogram.  Father Rogan had stopped, and stood, musing.

“I will say this much,” he remarked, thoughtfully:  “I believe you to be a better man than you think yourself to be, and a better man than I thought some hours ago.  But do not take this,” he added, with a smile, “as much praise.  I promised you a possible deliverance from an unhappy perplexity.  I will have to modify that promise.  I can only remove the mystery that enhanced that perplexity.  Your deliverance depends upon yourself.  Come.”

He led his companion up the stairway.  Halfway up, Lorison caught him by the sleeve.  “Remember,” he gasped, “I love that woman.”

“You desired to know.

“I—­Go on.”

The priest reached the landing at the top of the stairway.  Lorison, behind him, saw that the illuminated space was the glass upper half of a door opening into the lighted room.  The rhythmic music increased as they neared it; the stairs shook with the mellow vibrations.

Lorison stopped breathing when he set foot upon the highest step, for the priest stood aside, and motioned him to look through the glass of the door.