rn away
and reflect for a few days would be so easy! It would be so sweet to
think of it, even though the excuse for thinking of Giovanni should be a
good determination to root him from her life. It would be so sweet to
drive again alone among the trees that very afternoon, and to weigh the
salvation of her soul in the balance of her heart: her heart would know
how to turn the scales, surely enough. Corona stood still, holding the
curtain in her hand. She was a brave woman, but she turned pale--not
hesitating, she said to herself, but pausing. Then, suddenly, a great
scorn of herself arose in her. Was it worthy of her even to pause in
doing right? The nobility of her courage cried loudly to her to go in and
do the thing most worthy: her hand lifted the heavy leathern apron, and
she entered the church.

The air within was heavy and moist, and the grey light fell coldly
through the tall windows. Corona shuddered, and drew her furs more
closely about her as she passed up the aisle to the door of the sacristy.
She found the monk she sought, and she made her confession.

"Padre mio," she said at last, when the good man thought she had
finished--"Padre mio, I am a very miserable woman." She hid her dark face
in her ungloved hands, and one by one the crystal tears welled from her
eyes and trickled down upon her small fingers and upon the worn black
wood of the confessional.

"My daughter," said the good monk, "I will pray for you, others will pray
for you--but before all things, you must pray for yourself. And let me
advise you, my child, that as we are all led into temptation, we must
not think that because we have been in temptation we have sinned
hopelessly; nor, if we have fought against the thing that tempts us,
should we at once imagine that we have overcome it, and have done
altogether right. If there were no evil in ourselves, there could be no
temptation from without, for nothing evil could seem pleasant. But with
you I cannot find that you have done any great wrong as yet. You must
take courage. We are all in the world, and do what we may, we cannot
disregard it. The sin you see is real, but it is yet not very near you
since you so abhor it; and if you pray that you may hate it, it will go
further from you till you may hope not even to understand how it could
once have been so near. Take courage--take comfort. Do not be morbid.
Resist temptation, but do not analyse it nor yourself too closely; for
it is one of the