Now, I tell you, widow, if you love your
soul, you must go there no more. I am not going to be warning you for
ever. Do you hear my words? Do you intend to obey them?"

"Father O'Rourke," said the widow, looking calmly at him, "I have a
great respect for your office, and for the holy religion of which you
are a priest; there is nothing I have ever said against that. I am a
good Catholic, as I have always been, and you shall not be the person to
throw a stone at me; but if I go to the Vicarage, I go to hear the
gentle words of that poor blind lady, and the minister never speaks
anything to me but what is faithful and true. He is a good man, Father
O'Rourke, and I wish I was as sure of going to heaven as he is: that is
what I have got to tell you."

"Oh, Widow O'Neil, those are evil words you are speaking!" exclaimed the
priest; "you are just disobeying the holy mother Church; you are just
doing what will bring you down the road to destruction, and I tell you,
I believe it was your obstinacy, and your love for those heretics, that
was the cause of the loss of your son. He is gone, and I hope he is
gone to glory, for it is not for the want of me saying masses for his
soul, if he has not; for sure I am, that, if he had remained here, and
listened longer to the instruction of that false heretic, he would have
gone the way you are so anxious to go, Widow O'Neil."

The widow now stood up, throwing from her the nets, which had hitherto
been on her knees. She stepped back a pace or two, and stretched out
her hands.

"Father O'Rourke," she exclaimed, "it is not the truth you are speaking
to me! My boy never learned anything but what was good when he went to
the Vicarage: and more than that, though you say he has gone from this
world, there is something deep down in my heart which tells me he is
still alive. If he were dead, my heart would feel very different to
what it does now. I tell you, Father O'Rourke, I believe my son is
alive, and will come back some day to see me. I know he will. Do you
think I doubt his love? Do I doubt my love for him? No. Father
O'Rourke, you are a childless man yourself, and you do not know what the
love of a mother is for her child, and I do not think you know what the
love of a child is for its mother--a fond, loving mother, as I have
been,--not such a child as mine. The day will come when Dermot will
stand here, as you are standing here; but he will not be blaming his old
mothe