od, to thank him for having sent Moran
to warn me from crossing the lake? I think I did say a prayer, thanking
him for his mercy. Then I felt that I should pray to him for grace that
I might remain at home and be a good priest always, but that prayer I
couldn't formulate, and I suffered a great deal. I know that such
vacillations between belief and unbelief are neither profitable nor
admirable; I know that to pray to God to thank him for having saved me
from death while in mortal sin, and yet to find myself unable to pray to
him to do his will, is illogical, and I confess that my fear is now lest
old beliefs will claim me before the time comes. A poor, weak, tried
mortal man am I, but being what I am, I cannot be different. I am calm
enough now, and it seems as if my sufferings were at an end; but
to-morrow some new fear will rise up like mist, and I shall be
enveloped. What an awful thing it would be if I should find myself
without will on the fifteenth, or the sixteenth, or the seventeenth of
August! If the wind should rise again, and the lake be windy while the
moon is full, my chance for leaving here this summer will be at an end.
The water will be too cold in September.

'And now you know all, and if you don't get a letter from New York,
understand that what appears in the newspapers is true--that I was
drowned whilst bathing. I needn't apologize for this long letter; you
will understand that the writing of it has taken me out of myself, and
that is a great gain. There is no one else to whom I can write, and it
pleases me to know this. I am sorry for my sisters in the convent; they
will believe me dead. I have a brother in America, the one who sent the
harmonium that you used to play on so beautifully. He will believe in my
death, unless we meet in America, and that is not likely. I look forward
to writing to you from New York.

'OLIVER GOGARTY.'

Two evenings were passed pleasantly on the composition and the copying
of this letter, and, not daring to entrust it to the postboy, he took it
himself to Bohola; and he measured the time carefully, so as to get
there a few minutes before the postmistress sealed up the bag. He
delayed in the office till she sealed it, and returned home, following
the letter in imagination to Dublin, across the Channel to Beechwood
Hall. The servant in charge would redirect it. His thoughts were at
ramble, and they followed the steamer down the Mediterranean. It would
lie in the post-