ones he said to the priest, "You have
innocently brought me most distressing news. I entreat your pardon if I
ask to be left alone."

Father Benwell said a few well-chosen words of sympathy, and immediately
withdrew. The dog licked his master's hand, hanging listlessly over the
arm of the chair.

Later in the evening, a note from Winterfield was left by messenger at
the priest's lodgings. The writer announced, with renewed expressions of
regret, that he would be again absent from London on the next day,
but that he hoped to return to the hotel and receive his guest on the
evening of the day after.

Father Benwell rightly conjectured that Winterfield's destination was
the town in which his wife had died.

His object in taking the journey was not, as the priest supposed, to
address inquiries to the rector and the landlady, who had been present
at the fatal illness and the death--but to justify his wife's last
expression of belief in the mercy and compassion of the man whom she had
injured. On that "nameless grave," so sadly and so humbly referred to in
the confession, he had resolved to place a simple stone cross, giving to
her memory the name which she had shrunk from profaning in her lifetime.
When he had written the brief inscription which recorded the death of
"Emma, wife of Bernard Winterfield," and when he had knelt for a while
by the low turf mound, his errand had come to its end. He thanked the
good rector; he left gifts with the landlady and her children, by which
he was gratefully remembered for many a year afterward; and then, with a
heart relieved, he went back to London.

Other men might have made their sad little pilgrimage alone. Winterfield
took his dog with him. "I must have something to love," he said to the
rector, "at such a time as this."

CHAPTER IV.

FATHER BENWELL'S CORRESPONDENCE.

_To the Secretary, S. J., Rome._

WHEN I wrote last, I hardly thought I should trouble you again so soon.
The necessity has, however, arisen. I must ask for instructions, from
our Most Reverend General, on the subject of Arthur Penrose.

I believe that I informed you that I decided to defer my next visit to
Ten Acres Lodge for two or three days, in order that Winterfield (if
he intended to do so) might have time to communicate with Mrs.
Romayne, after his return from the country. Naturally enough, perhaps,
considering the delicacy of the subject, he has not taken me into his
confidence. I can only guess