w," he continued, turning to the old priest,
with sparkling eyes, "I have only to ask your blessing, and the good
wishes of these ladies, to go forth on my mission of peace. If I am
successful," he added, with a light laugh, "confess that a layman and
a heretic may do some service for the Church." As the old man laid his
half detaining, half benedictory hands upon his shoulders, the young man
seized the opportunity to whisper in his ear, "Remember your promise to
tell her ALL I have told you," and, with an other glance at Miss Keene,
he marshalled Mrs. Brimmer and Miss Chubb before him, and hurried them
to the boat.

Miss Keene looked after him with a vague felicity in the change that
seemed to have come on him, a change that she could as little account
for as her own happiness. Was it the excitement of danger that had
overcome his reserve, and set free his compressed will and energy? She
longed for her brother to see him thus--alert, strong, and chivalrous.
In her girlish faith, she had no fear for his safety; he would conquer,
he would succeed; he would come back to them victorious! Looking up from
her happy abstraction, at the side of Mrs. Markham, who had calmly gone
to sleep in an arm-chair, she saw Father Esteban's eyes fixed upon her.
With a warning gesture of the hand towards Mrs. Markham, he rose, and,
going to the door of the sacristy, beckoned to her. The young girl
noiselessly crossed the room and followed him into the sanctuary.

Half an hour later, and while Mrs. Markham was still asleep, Father
Esteban appeared at the door of the sacristy ostentatiously taking
snuff, and using a large red handkerchief to wipe his more than usually
humid eyes. Eleanor Keene, with her chin resting on her hand, remained
sitting as he had left her, with her abstracted eyes fixed vacantly on
the lamp before the statue of the Virgin and the half-lit gloom of the
nave.

Padre Esteban had told her ALL! She now knew Hurlstone's history even
as he had hesitatingly imparted it to the old priest in this very
church--perhaps upon the very seat where she sat. She knew the peace
that he had sought for and found within these walls, broken only by his
passion for her! She knew his struggles against the hopelessness of this
new-born love, even the desperate remedy that had been adopted against
herself, and the later voluntary exile of her lover. She knew
the providential culmination of his trouble in the news brought
unconsciously by Pe