_and_
there: _He_ will be in the fire with me."

Agellius lay quiet for some hours, and seemed asleep. Suddenly he began
again, "I was baptized when I was only six years old. I'm glad you do not
think it was wilful in me, and wrong. I cannot tell what took me," he
presently continued. "It was a fervour; I have had nothing of the kind
since. What does our Lord say? I can't remember: 'Novissima pejora
prioribus.' "

He continued the train of thought another day, or rather the course of his
argument; for on the thought itself his mind seemed ever to be working.
"My spring is gone," he said, "and I have no summer. Nay, I have had no
spring; it was a day, not a season. It came, and it went; where am I now?
Can spring ever return? I wish to begin again in right earnest."

"Thank God, my son, for this great mercy," said Caecilius, "that, though
you have relaxed, you have never severed yourself from the peace of the
Church, you have not denied your God."

Agellius sighed bitterly. "O my father," he said, " 'Erravi, sicut ovis
quae periit.' I have been very near denying Him, at least by outward act.
You do not know me; you cannot know what has come on me lately. And I dare
not look back on it, my heart is so weak. My father, how am I to repent of
what is past, when I dare not think of it? To think of it is to renew the
sin."

" 'Puer meus, noli timere,' " answered the priest; " 'si transieris per
ignem, odor ejus non erit in te.' In penance, the grace of God carries you
without harm through thoughts and words which _would_ harm you apart from
it."

"Ah, penance!" said Agellius; "I recollect the catechism. What is it,
father? a new grace, I know; a plank after baptism. May I have it?"

"You are not strong enough yet to think of these things, Agellius,"
answered Caecilius. "Please God, you shall get well. Then you shall review
all your life, and bring it out in order before Him; and He, through me,
will wipe away all that has been amiss. Praise Him who has spared you for
this."

It was too much for the patient in his weak state; he could but shed happy
tears.

Another day he had sat up in bed. He looked at his hands, from which the
skin was peeling; he felt his lips, and it was with them the same; and his
hair seemed coming off also. He smiled and said, "Renovabitur, ut aquila,
juventus mea."

Caecilius responded, as before, with sacred words which were new to
Agellius: " 'Qui sperant in Domino mutabunt fortitudinem;