this poor girl,"

"You wish to have her taken to the Fort, I suppose? What was she doing
with Pretty Pierre?"

"I wish her taken to her home."

"Where is her home, father?" And his eyes were cast with trouble on the
girl, though he could assign no cause for that.

"Her home, Shon,"--the priest's voice was very gentle--"her home was
where they sing such words as these of a wanderer:

"'You'll hear the wild birds singin' beneath a brighter sky,'
The roof-tree of your home, dear, it will be grand and high;
But you'll hunger for the hearthstone where a child you used to lie,
You'll be comin' back, my darlin'."'

During these words Shon's face ran white, then red; and now he stepped
inside the door like one in a dream, and the girl's face was lifted to
his as though he had called her. "Mary--Mary Callen!" he cried. His
arms spread out, then dropped to his side, and he fell on his knees by
the table facing her, and looked at her with love and horror warring in
his face; for the remembrance that she had been with Pierre was like the
hand of the grave upon him. Moving not at all, she looked at him, a numb
despondency in her face. Suddenly Shon's look grew stern, and he was
about to rise; but Father Corraine put a hand on his shoulder, and said:
"Stay where you are, man--on your knees. There is your place just now.
Be not so quick to judge, and remember your own sins before you charge
others without knowledge. Listen now to me."