ll remain. You have left the Church
of which Monsignor Lafelle is a part. Either you have done that
Church, and him, a great injustice--or he does ignorant or wilful
wrong in insisting that I unite with it."

"My dear child," said Lafelle gently, now recovered and wholly on his
guard, "your impetuosity gets the better of your judgment. This is no
occasion for a theological discussion, nor are you sufficiently
informed to bear a part in such. As for myself, you unintentionally do
me great wrong. As I have repeatedly told you, I seek only your
eternal welfare. Else would I not labor with you as I do."

Carmen turned to Father Waite. "Is my eternal welfare dependent upon
acceptance of the Church's doctrines?"

"No," he said, in a scarcely audible voice.

A cynical look came into Lafelle's eyes. But he replied affably: "When
preachers fall out, the devil falls in. Your reply, Mr. Waite, comes
quite consistently from one who has impudently tossed aside
authority."

"My authority, Monsignor," returned the ex-priest in a low tone, "is
Jesus Christ, who said: 'Love thy neighbor as thyself.'"

"Ah!" murmured Lafelle; "then it was love that prompted you to abandon
your little flock?"

"I left my pulpit, Monsignor, because I had nothing to give my people.
I no longer believe the dogmas of the Church. And I refused longer to
take the poor people's money to support an institution so politically
religious as I believe your Church to be. I could no longer take their
money to purchase the release of their loved ones from an imagined
purgatory--a place for which there is not the slightest Scriptural
warrant--"

"You mistake, sir!" interrupted Lafelle in an angry tone.

"Very well, Monsignor," replied Father Waite; "grant, then, that there
is such Scriptural warrant; I would nevertheless know that the
existence of purgatory was wholly incompatible with the reign of an
infinite God of love. And, knowing that, I have ceased to extort gifts
of money from the ignorance of the living and the ghastly terrors of
the dying--"

"And so deceive yourself that you are doing a righteous act in
removing their greatest consolation," the churchman again interrupted,
a sneer curving his lip.

"Consolation! The consolation which the stupifying drug affords, yes!
Ah, Monsignor, as I looked down into the faces of my poor people, week
after week, I knew that no sacerdotal intervention was needed to remit
their sins, for their sins were but the