the Sacraments, and faith
returning like an incoming tide, covering the weedy shore, lapping round
the high rock of doubt. If he desired faith, all he had to do was to go
on saying Mass, hearing confessions, baptizing the young, burying the
old, and in twenty years--maybe it would take thirty--when his hair was
white and his skin shrivelled, he would be again a good priest, beloved
by his parishioners, and carried in the fulness of time by them to the
green churchyard where Father Peter lay near the green pines.

Only the other day, coming home from his after-noon's walk, he stopped
to admire his house. The long shadow of its familiar trees awakened an
extraordinary love in him, and when he crossed the threshold and sat
down in his armchair, his love for his house had surprised him, and he
sat like one enchanted by his own fireside, lost in admiration of the
old mahogany bookcase with the inlaid panels, that he had bought at an
auction. How sombre and quaint it looked, furnished with his books that
he had had bound in Dublin, and what pleasure it always was to him to
see a ray lighting up the parchment bindings! He had hung some
engravings on his walls, and these had become very dear to him; and
there were some spoons, bought at an auction some time ago--old, worn
Georgian spoons--that his hands were accustomed to the use of; there was
an old tea-service, with flowers painted inside the cups, and he was
leaving these things; why? He sought for a reason for his leaving them.
If he were going away to join Nora in America he could understand his
going. But he would never see her again--at least, it was not probable
that he would. He was not following her, but an idea, an abstraction, an
opinion; he was separating himself, and for ever, from his native land
and his past life, and his quest was, alas! not her, but--He was
following what? Life? Yes; but what is life? Do we find life in
adventure or by our own fireside? For all he knew he might be flying
from the very thing he thought he was following. His thoughts zigzagged,
and, almost unaware of his thoughts, he compared life to a flower--to a
flower that yields up its perfume only after long cultivation--and then
to a wine that gains its fragrance only after it has been lying in the
same cellar for many years, and he started up convinced that he must
return home at once. But he had not taken many steps before he stopped:

'No, no, I cannot stay here year after year! I can