He entered a room that did not share the attempt at elegance of the front part of the house; plain as a cottage kitchen, it was warm and comfortable withal.  The large bed with patchwork quilt stood in a corner; in the middle was an iron stove in which logs crackled and sparkled.  The air was hot and dry, but the priest, being accustomed to the atmosphere of stoves, took no notice, in fact, he noticed nothing but the room’s one inmate, who from the first moment compelled his whole attention.

In a wooden arm-chair, dressed in a black petticoat and a scarlet bedgown, sat a strong old woman.  Weakness was there as well as strength, certainly, for she could not leave her chair, and the palsy of excitement was shaking her head, but the one idea conveyed by every wrinkle of the aged face and hands, by every line of the bowed figure, was strength.  One brown toil-worn hand held the head of a thick walking-stick which she rested on the floor well in front of her, as if she were about to rise and walk forward.  Her brown face—­nose and chin strongly defined—­was stretched forward as the visitor entered; her eyes, black and commanding, carried with them something of that authoritative spell that is commonly attributed to a commanding mind.  Great physical size or power this woman apparently had never had, but she looked the very embodiment of a superior strength.

‘Shut the door! shut the door behind ye!’ These were the first words that the youthful confessor heard, and then, as he advanced, ’You’re young,’ she said, peering into his face.  Without a moment’s intermission further orders were given him:  ’Be seated; be seated!  Take a chair by the fire and put up your wet feet.  It is from Father M’Leod of St. Patrick’s Church that ye’ve come?’

The young man, whose boots were well soaked with ice-water, was not loth to put them up on the edge of the stove.  It was not at all his idea of a priestly visit to a woman who had represented herself as dying, but it is a large part of wisdom to take things as they come until it is necessary to interfere.

’You wrote, I think, to Father M’Leod, saying that as the priests of this parish are French and you speak English——­’

Some current of excitement hustled her soul into the midst of what she had to say.

’’Twas Father Maloney, him that had St. Patrick’s before Father M’Leod, who married me; so I just thought before I died I’d let one of ye know a thing concerning that marriage that I’ve never told to mortal soul.  Sit ye still and keep your feet to the fire; there’s no need for a young man like you to be taking your death with the wet because I’ve a thing to say to ye.’

‘You are not a Catholic now,’ said he, raising his eyebrows with intelligence as he glanced at a Bible and hymn-book that lay on the floor beside her.