That night, when we were alone, Mary and I talked over the diabolical crime that had within four and twenty hours shaken the whole country like an earthquake, and over the merciful interposition that had arrested us on our way to what might have been for us, as it was for many, a certain and horrible death. Mary, though she said little on this latter point, was evidently very deeply impressed, and what she did say carried in it a depth of religious emotion that revealed her to me in quite a new light. It was agreed that she would go to confession next day, and that we were to begin a novena together in thanksgiving for our preservation. "Mary," I said impulsively, after we had been silent a little while, "why have you such a dislike to go to the sacraments? I can't understand how, believing in them at all, you can be satisfied to approach them so seldom." "It isn't dislike; it is _fear_," she answered. "It's precisely because I realize so _awfully_ the power and sanctity of the Blessed Sacrament that I keep away. I believe so intensely in it that, if I went often to holy communion, I should have to divorce from everything, to give up my whole life to preparation and thanksgiving. I know I should. And I don't want to do it. Not yet, at any rate," she added, half-unconsciously, as if speaking to herself. I shall never forget the effect her words had on me, nor her face as she uttered them. The night was far spent. The emotions of the day, the long watch, and perhaps the flickering of our bedroom candle that was burning low, all conspired to give an unwonted pallor to her features that imbued them with an almost ethereal beauty. I always think of her now as she sat there, in her girlish white dressing-gown, her hands locked resting on her knees, her head thrown back, and her eyes looking up, so still, as if some far beyond were breaking on her gaze and holding it transfixed. Nothing broke on mine. In my dull blindness I did not see that I was assisting at the beginning of a great mystery, a spectacle on which the gaze of angels was riveted--the wrestling of a soul with God: the soul resisting; the Creator pleading and pursuing. She left us at the end of January to return home. We parted with many tears, and a promise to correspond often and pray for each other daily.