he hawthorns that grew
along the cart-track--a tall woman with a little bend in her walk.

He wondered why he was so foolish as to disobey her, and besought her to
return to him, and they roamed again in the paths that led round the
rocks overgrown with briars, by the great oak-tree where the leaves were
falling. And wandering they went, smiling gently on each other, till she
began to tell him that he must abide by the shores of the lake--why, he
could not understand, for the wood was much more beautiful, and he was
more alone with her in the wood than by the lake.

The sympathy was so complete that words were not needed, but they had
begun in his ears. He strove to apprehend the dim words sounding in his
ears. Not her words, surely, for there was a roughness in the voice, and
presently he heard somebody asking him why he was about this time of
night, and very slowly he began to understand that one of his
parishioners was by him, asking him whither he was going.

'You'll be catching your death at this hour of the night, Father
Oliver.'

And the man told Father Oliver he was on his way to a fair, and for a
short-cut he had come through the wood. And Father Oliver listened,
thinking all the while that he must have been dreaming, for he could
remember nothing.

'Now, your reverence, we're at your own door, and the door is open.
When you went out you forgot to close it.'

The priest didn't answer.

'I hope no harm will come to your reverence; and you'll be lucky if you
haven't caught your death.'

X

He stopped in his undressing to ponder how Moran had come to tell him
that he was going away on a drinking-bout, and all their long walk
together to within a mile of Regan's public-house returned to him bit by
bit, how Moran knelt down by the roadside to drink bog-water, which he
said would take the thirst from him as well as whisky; and after bidding
Moran good-night he had fallen into his armchair. It was not till he
rose to his feet to go to bed that he had caught sight of the letter.
Nora wrote--he could not remember exactly what she wrote, and threw
himself into bed. After sleeping for many hours, his eyes at last
opened, and he awoke wondering, asking himself where he was. Even the
familiar room surprised him. And once more he began the process of
picking his way back, but he couldn't recall what had happened from the
time he left his house in search of Moran till he was overtaken by Alec
in the wood.