ee
pages closely writ,--the villain, O the villain!"

"Read the villain's letter," said Francis, calmly.

The letter was very humble and pathetic,--the reply of a good, though
erring man, who owned that in a moment of weakness he had been betrayed
into a feeling inconsistent with his holy profession. He begged his
correspondent, however, not to judge him quite so hardly. He reminded
her of his solitary life, his natural melancholy, and assured her that
all men in his condition had moments when they envied those whose bosoms
had partners. "Such a cry of anguish," said he, "was once wrung from a
maiden queen, maugre all her pride. The Queen of Scots hath a son; and I
am but a barren stock." He went on to say that prayer and vigilance
united do much. "Do not despair so soon of me. Flight is not cure: let
me rather stay, and, with God's help and the saints', overcome this
unhappy weakness. If I fail, it will indeed be time for me to go, and
never again see the angelic face of my daughter and my benefactress."

Griffith laid down the letter. He was somewhat softened by it, and said,
gently, "I cannot understand it. This is not the letter of a thorough
bad man neither."

"No," said Father Francis, coldly, "'t is the letter of a self-deceiver;
and there is no more dangerous man to himself and others than your
self-deceiver. But now let us see whether he can throw dust in her eyes,
as well as his own." And he handed him Kate's reply.

The first word of it was, "You deceive yourself." The writer then
insisted, quietly, that he owed it to himself, to her, and to her
husband, whose happiness he was destroying, to leave the place at her
request.

"Either you must go, or I," said she: "and pray let it be you. Also,
this place is unworthy of your high gifts: and I love you, in my way,
the way I mean to love you when we meet again--in heaven; and I labor
your advancement to a sphere more worthy of you."

* * * * *

I wish space permitted me to lay the whole correspondence before the
reader; but I must confine myself to its general purport.

It proceeded in this way: the priest, humble, eloquent, pathetic; but
gently, yet pertinaciously, clinging to the place: the lady, gentle,
wise, and firm, detaching with her soft fingers, first one hand, then
another, of the poor priest's, till at last he was driven to the sorry
excuse that he had no money to travel with, nor place to go to.

"I can't unde