for this act of grace, they walked on until
they reached Father Oliver's gate.

'I believe you're right, Moran; I believe that a miracle has happened.
You'll go home straight, won't you?'

Father Moran grasped Father Oliver's hand.

'Indeed I will.'

And Father Oliver stood by his gate looking down the road, and he didn't
open it and go through until Father Moran had passed out of sight.
Pushing it open, he walked up the gravel path, saying to himself, 'A
miracle, without doubt. Moran called it a miracle and it seems like one,
but will it last? Moran believes himself cured, that is certain;' and
Father Oliver thought how his curate had gripped his hand, and felt sure
that the grip meant, 'You've done me a great service, one I can never
repay.'

It was a pleasure to think that Moran would always think well of him.
'Yes, Moran will always think well of me,' he repeated as he groped his
way into the dark and lonely house in search of a box of matches. When
his lamp was lighted he threw himself into his armchair so that he might
ponder better on what had happened. 'I've been a good friend to him, and
it's a great support to a man to think that he's been a good friend to
another, that he kept him in the straight path, saved him from himself.
Saved himself from himself,' he repeated;' can anybody be saved from
himself?' and he began to wonder if Moran would conquer in the end and
take pride in his conquest over himself.

There was no sound, only an occasional spit of the lamp, and in the
silence Father Oliver asked if it were the end of man's life to trample
upon self or to encourage self. 'Nora,' he said, 'would answer that self
is all we have, and to destroy it and put in its place conventions and
prejudices is to put man's work above God's. But Nora would not answer
in these words till she had spoken with Mr. Walter Poole.' The name
brought a tightening about his heart, and when Father Oliver stumbled to
his feet--he had walked many miles, and was tired--he began to think he
must tell Nora of the miracle that had happened about a mile--he thought
it was just a mile--beyond Patsy Regan's public-house. The miracle would
impress her, and he looked round the room. It was then he caught sight
of a letter--her letter. The envelope and foreign stamp told him that
before he read the address--her writing! His hand trembled and his cheek
paled, for she was telling him the very things he had longed to know.
She was in love wit