loved before I saw you, Laura, I loved in defiance of all law--God's or
man's. If she had struggled one heartbeat less, if God had let me wander
one hair's breadth further from His hand, we had both made
shipwreck--hopeless, eternal shipwreck. Laura, my little Laura, am I
hurting you so?"

She gave a little sob, and mutely, with shut eyes, she raised her face
towards him. He stooped and very tenderly and gravely kissed her cheek.

"But God's mercy did not fail!" he said or rather murmured. "At the last
moment that woman--God rest her soul!--God bless her for ever!----"

He took off his hat, and bent forward silently for a moment.

--"She died, Laura, more than ten years ago!--At the last moment she
saved both herself and me. She sent for one of my old Jesuit masters at
Stonyhurst, a man who had been a great friend of Father Lewin's and
happened to be at that moment in Brussels. He came. He brought me her
last farewell, and he asked me to go back with him that evening to join a
retreat that he was holding in one of the houses of the order near
Brussels. I went in a sullen state, stunned and for the moment
submissive.

"But the retreat was agony. I could take part in nothing. I neglected the
prescribed hours and duties; it was as though my mind could not take them
in, and I soon saw that I was disturbing others.

"One evening--I was by myself in the garden at recreation hour--the
father who was holding the retreat came up to me, and sternly asked me to
withdraw at once. I looked at him. 'Will you give me one more day?' I