ernoon Percy re

lking-dress and looked at him in the light from the tall parlour-window, came to no

e," said the priest,

must not s

id the stranger eagerly. "My bu

with his ey

o you. She was a Catholic once; s

is head. It was a message he did no

r, will you not? Y

sallow face showed a little shining w

ll come," said

uld make a great stir, sir, if it was known. It mus

t kind," said the priest gently. "I

licked his li

u will say nothing till you have

nly," said

for me. And-and, if you please, sir, the lady is ill; you must come to-day, if y

?" asked Per

ite down the address presently. And you wi

not

ay be there. They will be

ht: discreditable plots had been known

send for her paris

you once in the Cathedral, sir, and asked you f

the kind a month or two before; but

ou will come,

her Dolan," said the priest.

ather Dolan must not know her

myself yet," said

k abruptly at that,

very prominent Communist. She lives with him and his wife. The other two will be

wo. Certainly, if this was a conspiracy, the c

sir; I promise

ed timidly from side to side. Then he seemed to gather

s Brand, sir-the mothe

as he who, by God's permission, was doing more in England at this moment against the Catholic cause than any other man aliv

fiercely u

eve in God or not; but will you swear to me on yo

vered; but it was the wavering

t, sir; by G

u a Cat

shook

God," he said. "At

eakness; there was fear of a kind, excitement, bewilderment, and under all a satisfaction that God's grace was so sovereign. If it

You are not going ba

e cloud a little,

be there at twenty-two o'cl

pe. She is recovered

his hand over his

re," he said. "Shall

k his head, st

but I must not speak of that.... No, sir; ask for Mrs. Brand, and s

y I am a pries

; if you

led in it a moment, tore out the

you kindly destroy that

ose my place, sir, i

ng the paper in hi

a Catholic your

ly. Then he took up his hat

*

a very emotio

he Church's reliance on the supernatural was belied by every one of her public acts. "Scratch a Catholic and find an assassin" had been the text of a leading article in the New People, and Percy himself was dismayed at the folly of the attempt. It was true that the Archbishop had formally repudiated both the act and the motive from the Cathedral pulpit, but that too had only served as an op

sage that the hero's own mother desired reconciliatio

*

hwards once more as the lights began to shine towards evening, he wondered whether this were not a plot

ious sense of fatality; addressed and stamped it. Then he went

confession, father