Under the guidance of Father Superior Elverton, a gaunt man of unusual height, with the ascetic jaw of a Trappist, and dreamy eyes mystical as Hugo of St. Victor, Mr. Herriott was shown fields, garden and buildings, and after dinner in the refectory, where, in honor of his presence, conversation was allowed, he asked the privilege of being left alone with Father Temple. It was a warm day, and drawing chairs to a shaded recess of the cloister, Mr. Herriott said: "I am so glad the weather favored me to-day for this visit. It will rain soon." "No; look at that deep blue, clear sky. I see no prophecy of rain, but you have tried so many climates, doubtless you are weather wise." "If a man who has slept often in tents, open boats and on the bare ground learns nothing of nature's atmospheric signal code, he is far below savages in intelligence, and more ignorant than brutes. You of the shut-in clan are not skilled meteorologists, but time is too precious to be wasted in idle weather chat. Vernon, there is much I should like to know, yet I shrink from questioning you. Many letters have been lost, and my home news came in snatches, sometimes with no connection, no coherence. I have thought of you constantly, and now what you are willing to tell me of all that has happened since we parted in New York that Sunday night, I shall be glad to hear." Leaning his elbow on the brick base of an arch and bowing his head in his palm, Father Temple narrated the circumstances that attended the death of his wife and son, withholding nothing. His muffled voice was steady and passionless, as if reading from the breviary, and when the face lifted it showed only the quiet hopelessness in eyes of one going back over a battle-field where all that was cherished went down. "Thank you, Temple. It might have been worse, and at least you must be comforted in knowing that at the last she relented and did you justice." "The last has become first. All that preceded it I have cast away, and that final hour of forgiveness, that touch on my head--that feeble clinging of her fingers--is what remains of my past life--what sustains me for the future." "Try to avoid morbid retrospection. Your expiation has been so complete you have no grounds for self-reproach; you are still a young man, and your life work is ahead of you." The priest threw out one hand, and his trained tone broke suddenly. "Expiation will never end while I have breath to pray--not until the same grave that holds my victims covers me. You can not understand, because you know no more about love than the rubric! If you had ever felt your wife's lips on yours, or the clasp of your child's arms, and heard his glad, tender cry of 'father!'--you would realize that no expiation could be sufficient, if your hand had smitten them to ruin."