"The priest will now release you from the ban and censures of the Church, and will so receive you into the True Fold. If you do not yourself say the Confiteor, you will do well to repeat in a low voice, with sorrow of heart, those words of the penitent in the Gospel: 'O God, be merciful to me a sinner!' He will then administer to you baptism under condition (_sub conditione_).... Being now baptized and received into the Church, you will go and kneel in the Confessional or other appointed place in the church to make your confession, and to receive from the priest the sacramental absolution. While receiving absolution you must renew your sorrow and hatred of sin, and your resolution to amend, making a sincere Act of Contrition." Then, as the book was dropping from her hand, a few paragraphs further on her eyes caught the words: "If we are not able to remember the exact number of our sins, it is enough to state the probable number to the best of our recollection and judgment, saying: 'I have committed that sin about so many times a day, a week, or a month.' Indeed, we are bound to reveal our conscience to the priest as we know it ourselves, there and then stating the things certain as certain, those doubtful as doubtful, and the probable number as probable." She threw away the book. She crouched in her chair beside Helbeck's table, her small face buried despairingly in her hands. "I can't--I can't! I would if I could--I can't!" Through the shiver of an invincible repulsion that held her spoke a hundred things--things inherited, things died for, things wrought out by the moral experience of generations. But she could not analyse them. All she knew were the two words--"I can't." * * * * * The little pony took them merrily through the gay October woods. Autumn was at its cheerfullest. The crisp leaves under foot, the tonic earth smells in the air, the wet ivy shining in the sun, the growing lightness and strength of the trees as the gold or red leaf thinned and the free branching of the great oaks or ashes came into sight--all these belonged to the autumn which sings and vibrates, and can in a flash disperse and drive away the weeping and melancholy autumn.