lieve blindly what she was told. She hated wobbling,
yet she did nothing else. Suddenly she felt that if she were to believe
at all, it must be like Monsignor. The magnetism of his faith thrilled
her, and, in a moment, it had all became real to her. But it was too
late. She could never do all her religion asked. Her whole life would
have to come to pieces; nothing of it would remain, and she entirely
lost heart when she considered in detail the sacrifices she would have
to make. She saw herself at Dulwich with her father, giving singing
lessons, attending the services, and living about St. Joseph's. She saw
herself singing operas in every capital, and always a new lover at her
heels. Both lives were equally impossible to her. As she lay back in her
carriage driving through the lazy summer streets, she almost wished she
had no conscience at all. What was the use of it? She had just enough to
spoil her happiness in wrong-doing, yet not enough to prevent her doing
what deep down in her heart she knew to be wrong.

That evening she wrote a number of letters, and begged a subscription of
every friend--Owen was out of the question and she hesitated whether she
should make use of Ulick. She would have liked to have left him out of
this concert altogether, and it was only because she had no one else
whom she could depend upon that she consented to let him go off in
search of the necessary tenor. But to take him to the concert did not
seem right.

She dipped her pen in the ink, and then laid it down, overcome by a
sudden and intolerable melancholy. She could have cried, so great was
her weariness with the world, so worthless did her life seem. She had
begged her father's forgiveness; he had forgiven her, but she had not
sent away her lover.... She had told Monsignor that, in consequence of
certain scruples of conscience, she intended to give up the stage, but
she had not told him that she had taken another lover and brought him to
live with her under her father's roof. Whether there was a God and a
hereafter, or merely oblivion, such conduct as hers was surely wrong.
She walked to and fro, and came to a resolution regarding her relations
with Ulick, at all events in her father's house.

Then life seemed perfectly hopeless, and she wished Monsignor had not
come to see her. What could she do to shake off this clammy and
unhealthy depression which hung about her? She might go for a walk, but
where? The perspective of the street r