Father Monies was awaiting him, and welcomed him with that look of affection, of more than brotherly love, which the good man had for the younger priest.

“I hope your walk has done you good.”

“Perhaps,” Father Damon replied, without any leniency in his face; “but that does not matter.  I must tell you what I could not last night.  Can you hear me?”

They went together into the oratory.  Father Damon did not spare himself.  He kept nothing back that could heighten the enormity of his offense.

And Father Monies did not attempt to lessen the impression upon himself of the seriousness of the scandal.  He was shocked.  He was exceedingly grave, but he was even more pitiful.  His experience of life had been longer than that of the penitent.  He better knew its temptations.  His own peace had only been won by long crucifixion of the natural desires.

“I have nothing to say as to your own discipline.  That you know.  But there is one thing.  You must face this temptation, and subdue it.”

“You mean that I must go back to my labor in the city?”

“Yes.  You can rest here a few days if you feel too weak physically.”

“No; I am well enough.”  He hesitated.  “I thought perhaps some other field, for a time?”

“There is no other field for you.  It is not for the moment the question of where you can do most good.  You are to reinstate yourself.  You are a soldier of the Lord Jesus, and you are to go where the battle is most dangerous.”

That was the substance of it all.  There was much affectionate counsel and loving sympathy mingled with all the inflexible orders of obedience, but the sin must be faced and extirpated in presence of the enemy.

On the morrow Father Damon went back to his solitary rooms, to his chapel, to the round of visitations, to his work with the poor, the sinful, the hopeless.  He did not seek her; he tried not to seem to avoid her, or to seem to shun the streets where he was most likely to meet her, and the neighborhoods she frequented.  Perhaps he did avoid them a little, and he despised himself for doing it.  Almost involuntarily he looked to the bench by the chapel door which she occasionally occupied at vespers.  She was never there, and he condemned himself for thinking that she might be; but yet wherever he walked there was always the expectation that he might encounter her.  As the days went by and she did not appear, his expectation became a kind of torture.  Was she ill, perhaps?  It could not be that she had deserted her work.

And then he began to examine himself with a morbid introspection.  Had the hope that he should see her occasionally influenced him at all in his obedience to Father Monies?  Had he, in fact, a longing to be in the streets where she had walked, among the scenes that had witnessed her beautiful devotion?  Had his willingness to take up this work again been because it brought him nearer to her in spirit?