“I shall pay heavily for the relief of speech if I am to have a sermon preached all to myself,” said Molly insolently.  “I was speaking of the need of human love; I was speaking of all I had suffered, and it is easy for you to retort upon me that I might have had Divine Love only that I chose to reject it.  Tell me, were you brought up without a mother’s love?”

“No; I had—­I have a mother who loves me almost too much.”

“Have you known real loneliness?”

“I believe every man and woman has known that the soul is alone.”

Molly shook her head.

“That is a mood; mine was a permanent state.  Have you ever known what it is to see God’s will on one side, and all possibilities of human happiness, glory, success, and pleasure, opposed to it?”

The young man blushed deeply.

“Yes, I have.”

Molly was checked.

“I forgot,” she answered; “but still you don’t understand.  You were an intimate friend of God when He asked you for the sacrifice, whereas I—­I had only an inkling, a suspicion of that Love.  Besides, you were not asked to give all your possessions to your enemies!  No; too much has been asked of me.”

“Can too much be asked where all has been given?” asked Father Molyneux.

“That is an old point for a sermon,” said Molly wearily.  “You don’t understand; you are of no use to me.  Good-bye!  I don’t think I shall come again.”

CHAPTER XXX

THE BIRTH OF A SLANDER

After that visit to Father Molyneux the devil seems to have entered into Molly.  It was a devil of fear and, consequently, of cruelty.  What she did to harm him was at first unpremeditated, and it must be allowed that she had not at the moment the means of knowing how fearful a harm such words as hers could do.  She said them too when terror had driven her to any distraction, and when wine had further excited her imagination.  Still it would not be surprising to find that many who might have forgiven her for a long, protracted fraud, would blot her out of their own private book of life for the mean cruelty of one sentence.

Not many hours had passed after the visit before Molly was furious with herself for her consummate folly in giving herself away to the young priest, who might even think it a duty to reveal what she said.

She had once told Mark that she might soon come to hate him, as hatred came most easily to her.  There was now quite cause enough for this hatred to come into being.  Molly had two chief reasons for it.  First, she was in his power to a dangerous extent and he might ruin her if he chose; secondly, she was afraid of his influence—­chiefly of the influence of his prayers—­and she dreaded still more that he should persuade her to ruin herself.