e. The least clear-sighted observer might have seen that fiery
passions or some unwonted accident must have thrown this man into the
bosom of the Church; certainly none but the most tremendous shocks
of lightning could have changed him, if indeed such a nature were
susceptible of change.

Women who have lived the life that Esther had so violently repudiated
come to feel absolute indifference as to the critics of our day, who
may be compared with them in some respects, and who feel at last perfect
disregard of the formulas of art; they have read so many books, they see
so many pass away, they are so much accustomed to written pages, they
have gone through so many plots, they have seen so many dramas, they
have written so many articles without saying what they meant, and have
so often been treasonable to the cause of Art in favor of their personal
likings and aversions, that they acquire a feeling of disgust of
everything, and yet continue to pass judgment. It needs a miracle to
make such a writer produce sound work, just as it needs another miracle
to give birth to pure and noble love in the heart of a courtesan.

The tone and manner of this priest, who seemed to have escaped from
a picture by Zurbaran, struck this poor girl as so hostile, little as
externals affected her, that she perceived herself to be less the object
of his solitude than the instrument he needed for some scheme. Being
unable to distinguish between the insinuating tongue of personal
interest and the unction of true charity, for we must be acutely
awake to recognize false coin when it is offered by a friend, she felt
herself, as it were, in the talons of some fierce and monstrous bird of
prey who, after hovering over her for long, had pounced down on her; and
in her terror she cried in a voice of alarm:

"I thought it was a priest's duty to console us, and you are killing
me!"

At this innocent outcry the priest started and paused; he meditated a
moment before replying. During that instant the two persons so strangely
brought together studied each other cautiously. The priest understood
the girl, though the girl could not understand the priest.

He, no doubt, put aside some plan which had threatened the unhappy
Esther, and came back to his first ideas.

"We are physicians of the soul," said he, in a mild voice, "and we know
what remedies suit their maladies."

"Much must be forgiven to the wretched," said Esther.

She fancied she had been wron