itual director, did you not?" he
asked.

"Yes, Father."

"Yet you do not wish to be frank with me. Isn't that true?"

There was a piercing look in the eyes he fixed upon her.

"Yes," she answered bravely.

"Why? Cannot you--at least will not you tell me?"

A similar reason to that which had caused her to refuse to hear what the
Diviner had seen in the sand caused her now to answer:

"There is something I cannot say. I am sure I am right not to say it."

"Do you wish me to speak frankly to you, my child?"

"Yes, you may."

"You have told me enough of your past life to make me feel sure that for
some time to come you ought to be very careful in regard to your faith.
By the mercy of God you have been preserved from the greatest of all
dangers--the danger of losing your belief in the teachings of the only
true Church. You have come here to renew your faith which, not killed,
has been stricken, reduced, may I not say? to a sort of invalidism. Are
you sure you are in a condition yet to help"--he hesitated obviously,
then slowly--"others? There are periods in which one cannot do what
one may be able to do in the far future. The convalescent who is just
tottering in the new attempt to walk is not wise enough to lend an arm
to another. To do so may seem nobly unselfish, but is it not folly?
And then, my child, we ought to be scrupulously aware what is our
real motive for wishing to assist another. Is it of God, or is it of
ourselves? Is it a personal desire to increase a perhaps unworthy, a
worldly happiness? Egoism is a parent of many children, and often they
do not recognise their father."

Just for a moment Domini felt a heat of anger rise within her. She did
not express it, and did not know that she had shown a sign of it till
she heard Father Roubier say:

"If you knew how often I have found that what for a moment I believed
to be my noblest aspirations had sprung from a tiny, hidden seed of
egoism!"

At once her anger died away.

"That is terribly true," she said. "Of us all, I mean."

She got up.

"You are going?"

"Yes. I want to think something out. You have made me want to. I must do
it. Perhaps I'll come again."

"Do. I want to help you if I can."

There was such a heartfelt sound in his voice that impulsively she held
out her hand.

"I know you do. Perhaps you will be able to."

But even as she said the last words doubt crept into her mind, even into
her voice.

The priest came to his g