“Gently!” said her mother, as the O’Malachy stirred and muttered in his sleep. “Now you are beyond me. I speak only from experience, you from imagination, which is naturally far more trustworthy. But your father is uneasy. If he finds you here he will be ready to kill us both. Creep out quietly.” “Let me stay with you here,” entreated Nadia. “I will be very quiet,--I will not speak. I--I should like to know you better. You have been so good to me to-day.” “It is too late,” returned her mother. “I also--there are many things which one could wish to change, looking at them to-night. But one cannot do it now.” “But--let me ask you just this--are you----” “No; I know what you would say, but I cannot listen. You are Protestant, I Catholic. But you may pray for me if you like. Now go.” Nadia rose and kissed her silently, and went out. The longing which both she and her mother had just put into words was strong upon her. If only they could have changed so many things! But it was too late. Old counsels of her godmother’s, Caerleon’s little-heeded remonstrances, came thronging back into her mind as she gained her own room and sank down upon a chair. She bowed her head upon the table, and sobbed. “It is all my fault!” she said. “I never know how much reason I have to love any one before it is too late. Oh, if it may not be too late for her!” CHAPTER XVII. MINE AND COUNTERMINE. It was broad daylight when the tinkling of a little bell aroused Nadia. Rising stiff and cramped from the uncomfortable position in which she had fallen asleep, kneeling beside her bed, she went to the window, which looked into the courtyard of the inn. A priest, followed by a youthful acolyte, was picking his way across the square towards the gate--not the Greek pope of the village, but a Roman Catholic priest from Boloszjen, the town from which the doctor came--and it was the boy who was ringing the bell she had heard. Divining at once that the priest had been summoned to administer the last sacraments to her mother, she hastened down-stairs, to find the O’Malachy and the travelled waiter talking in low voices in the passage. “And the gracious young lady was not even awakened?” she heard the waiter ask. “_À quoi cela servirait-il? Mademoiselle est Protestante_,” replied the O’Malachy, and the words fell on Nadia’s ear without conveying any impression to her mind. She advanced towards her mother’s door, and the waiter made a hasty movement as though to prevent her from entering the room, but she passed him and went in. Then she realised what had happened.