obtain her consent until she began to see that if she withheld it any
longer we might think she was concealing some important fact. Moreover,
I impressed upon her that it was right that I should hear your story,
not because I disbelieved hers--I take it for granted the facts are
correctly stated--but in the event of your being able to say something
which would put a different complexion upon them.

'Yours very sincerely,

'MICHAEL O'GRADY.'




IV

After reading Father O'Grady's letter he looked round, fearing lest
someone should speak to him. Christy was already some distance away;
there was nobody else in sight; and feeling he was safe from
interruption, he went towards the wood, thinking of the good priest who
had saved her (in saving her Father O'Grady had saved him), and of the
waste of despair into which he would have drifted certainly if the news
had been that she had killed herself. He stood appalled, looking into
the green wood, aware of the mysterious life in the branches; and then
lay down to watch the insect life among the grass--a beetle pursuing its
little or great destiny. But he was too exalted to remain lying down;
the wood seemed to beckon him, and he asked if the madness of the woods
had overtaken him. Further on he came upon a chorus of finches singing
in some hawthorn-trees, and in Derrinrush he stopped to listen to the
silence that had suddenly fallen. A shadow floated by; he looked up: a