you will not mind giving up recreation to-night. I wish to speak with
you on a matter of importance."

Maurice took the seat toward which the other waved his hand. He felt
alien and strange. He recalled the attitude of submission and reverence
with which he had once been accustomed to enter this room, the respect
with which he had heard every word of the Father; and he blamed
himself bitterly that he now took rather a defensive mood, and felt an
instinctive desire to escape. He reflected that he had been poisoned by
the world; yet he could not wholly shut out the consciousness that he
had no genuine desire to be freed from the sweet madness which had
seized him. He tried to put all thought of these matters by, however,
and to give his whole attention to what the priest might say to him.

"I think that you have met Mrs. Frostwinch," the Father said.

"I went to her house once," Maurice answered, surprised at the remark,
and feeling his pulse quicken at the remembrance of his first sight of
Berenice.

"I remember that you mentioned it in confession," was the grave reply.
"Satan sets his snares in the most unlikely places."

The words seemed almost a reply to Wynne's secret thought. His first
impulse was to resent this open allusion to a sacred confidence
whispered in the confessional. It was like a stab in the back, or a
trick to take unfair advantage; and the matter was made worse by this
allusion to a snare of Satan, which could mean nothing else but
Berenice herself. Maurice flushed hotly, but habit was strong in him,
and he cast down his eyes without reply.