“But you confuse yourself between right feelings and very foolish inferences,” continued the priest, “as is the wont of women,—­so much I have learnt by long experience in the confessional,—­be they young or old.  However, to set your heart at rest, there is no probable need for me to reveal the matter.  What you have told, if I mistake not, and perhaps more, is already known in the quarter which it most concerns.”

“Known!” exclaimed Hilda.  “Known to the authorities of Rome!  And what will be the consequence?”

“Hush!” answered the confessor, laying his finger on his lips.  “I tell you my supposition—­mind, it is no assertion of the fact—­in order that you may go the more cheerfully on your way, not deeming yourself burdened with any responsibility as concerns this dark deed.  And now, daughter, what have you to give in return for an old man’s kindness and sympathy?”

“My grateful remembrance,” said Hilda, fervently, “as long as I live!”

“And nothing more?” the priest inquired, with a persuasive smile.  “Will you not reward him with a great joy; one of the last joys that he may know on earth, and a fit one to take with him into the better world?  In a word, will you not allow me to bring you as a stray lamb into the true fold?  You have experienced some little taste of the relief and comfort which the Church keeps abundantly in store for all its faithful children.  Come home, dear child,—­poor wanderer, who hast caught a glimpse of the heavenly light,—­come home, and be at rest.”

“Father,” said Hilda, much moved by his kindly earnestness, in which, however, genuine as it was, there might still be a leaven of professional craft, “I dare not come a step farther than Providence shall guide me.  Do not let it grieve you, therefore, if I never return to the confessional; never dip my fingers in holy water; never sign my bosom with the cross.  I am a daughter of the Puritans.  But, in spite of my heresy,” she added with a sweet, tearful smile, “you may one day see the poor girl, to whom you have done this great Christian kindness, coming to remind you of it, and thank you for it, in the Better Land.”

The old priest shook his head.  But, as he stretched out his hands at the same moment, in the act of benediction, Hilda knelt down and received the blessing with as devout a simplicity as any Catholic of them all.

CHAPTER XL

HILDA AND A FRIEND

When Hilda knelt to receive the priest’s benediction, the act was witnessed by a person who stood leaning against the marble balustrade that surrounds the hundred golden lights, before the high altar.  He had stood there, indeed, from the moment of the girl’s entrance into the confessional.  His start of surprise, at first beholding her, and the anxious gloom that afterwards settled on his face, sufficiently betokened that he felt a deep and sad interest in what was going forward.