Father Honore spread his hands to the blaze. "She has a fine boy. I'm glad McCann is back again, and I hope anchored here for life. He's trying to buy his home he tells me." "So Maggie said--Father Honore;" she clasped and unclasped her hands nervously; "I think it's that that has made me come to you to-day." "That?--I think I don't quite understand, Aileen." "The home--I think I never felt so alone--so homeless as when I was there with her--and the baby--" She looked down, struggling to keep back the tears. Despite her efforts the bright drops plashed one after the other on her clasped hands. She raised her eyes, looking almost defiantly through the falling tears at the priest; the blood surged into her white cheeks; the rush of words followed:-- "I have no home--I've never had one--never shall have one--it's not for me, that paradise; it's for men and women like Jim McCann and Maggie.--Oh, why did I come here!" she cried out wildly; "why did you put me there in that house?--Why didn't Mr. Van Ostend let me alone where I was--happy with the rest! Why," she demanded almost fiercely, "why can't a child's life be her own to do with what she chooses? Why has any human being a right to say to another, whether young or old, 'You shall live here and not there'? Oh, it is tyrannical--it is tyranny of the worst kind, and what haven't I had to suffer from it all! It is like Hell on earth!" Her breath caught in great sobs that shook her; her eyes flashed through blinding tears; her cheeks were crimson; she continued to clasp and unclasp her hands. The peculiar ivory tint of the strong pock-marked face opposite her took on, during this outburst, a slightly livid hue. Every word she uttered was a blow; for in it was voiced misery of mind, suffering and hardness of heart, despair, ingratitude, undeserved reproach, anger, defiance and the ignoring of all facts save those in the recollection of which she had lost all poise, all control--And she was still so young! What was behind these facts that occasioned such a tirade? This was the priest's problem. He waited a moment to regain his own control. The ingratitude, the bitter injustice had shocked him out of it. Her mood seemed one of defiance only. The woman before him was one he had never known in the Aileen Armagh of the last fourteen years. He knew, moreover, that he must not speak--dare not, as a sacred obligation to his office, until he no longer felt the touch of anger he experienced upon hearing her unrestrained outburst. It was but a moment before that touch was removed; his heart softened towards her; filled suddenly with a pitying love, for with his mind's eye he saw the small blood-stained handkerchief in his hand, the initials A. A., the man on the cot from whose arm he had taken it more than six years before. Six years! How she must have suffered--and in silence!