"_Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!_" How the words ring down the ages laden with their burden of human penitence and remorse! Still, despite all the uses to which they have been wrested by hypocrisy and levity, they remain infinitely touching in the link they furnish, the bond of unity for the suffering, sin-laden souls of many races and many generations. When Elinor had finished the list of offences whereof she wished to free her soul, and which even to the sensitive conscience of Father White appeared over trivial for the emotion she had shown, the priest asked softly: "Is there nothing else? Examine well thine heart. Leave no dark sin untold to grow in the shadow and choke the fair flower of repentance." "No, Father, I know of no other sin." "Nor any unworthy wish?" "Nor any unworthy wish." "Nor any carnal affection threatening to draw thy soul away from the path of salvation?" The shaft was shrewdly aimed. It struck home. "Father, is it a sin to love?" "It may be--a deadly sin." "To love purely, with a high and unselfish devotion?" "It may be." "Prithee, tell me how, since God himself is love." "There is indeed a Godlike love, stooping to the weakest, bending over the lowest, yearning most over the most unworthy, such as the love of the shepherd for his sheep, of the mother for her son, of the true priest for his flock; but let a woman beware how she brings to the altar such a love for her husband." Elinor started. "Yes," Father White went on tenderly, but as one who must probe the wound that it may heal the sooner, "it is the nature of woman to look up. She will do it, and if she cannot raise the one she loves she will stoop to the dust herself, that from that abasement the man may still seem to stand above her." "Father," cried Elinor, casting aside all concealment, "the man I love is not base." "Do I know him?" "You have seen him." "This night?" "This night." "Can a man who knoweth not how to rule his own tongue rule a wife, and above all a wife like thee, aflame one instant, the next melted to tenderness, full of pity and long-suffering, yet quick of spirit and proud as Lucifer?" Elinor was silent. "A captious temper is a grievous fault, yet it may be mended--if he is of the true faith. But, oh, my daughter, tempt not thy fate by marrying an unbeliever! Faults thou mayst conquer; sins thou mayst forgive or win forgiveness for; but unbelief is a blight which fosters every vice and destroys every virtue. Root up this passion, though it seem to tear thy life with it. Think on thy boy! Durst thou expose him to the influence of such an example?" "Father," said Elinor, tremulously, "I cannot answer now--I must have time to think. Who knows but my love may draw him into the right path?" The priest shook his head; but as he was about to answer, the stamping of feet was heard outside, and Father White dismissed his penitent with a wave of his hand.