“No matter what you may tell me,” repeated the priest. “The mercy of God is mighty. Though you should hem yourself in with sins as with a wall of mountains, he can overlook them. Though you should sink in the lowest depths of sin, his hand can reach you. A sinner cannot be moved to call on the name of the Lord, unless the Lord should move him and have the merciful answer ready. I have blessed you. How long is it since your last confession?” The sick man half raised himself, and pointed across the room. “There is a crucifix on the table,” he said. “Go and kneel before that, and ask God to strengthen you for a hard trial. Then, if you come back to me, I will confess.” F. Chevreuse started up, and stood one instant erect and rigid, with his face upraised. Then he crossed the room, knelt before the crucifix, and held it to his breast during a moment of wordless prayer. As a sigh reached him through the stillness of the chamber, he laid the crucifix down, and returned to the bedside. “In the name of God, confess, and have no fear,” he said gently. “Have no fear!” The penitent lay with his face half turned to the pillow, and the bed was trembling under him; but he no longer refused to speak. To the company down‐stairs it seemed a very long interview. Mrs. Ferrier, Mrs. Gerald, and Miss Pembroke, kneeling together in the little sitting‐ room near the foot of the stairs, with the door open, had said the rosary, trying not to let their thoughts wander; then, sitting silent, had listened for a descending step, breathing each her own prayer now and then. Their greatest trouble was over. Evidently F. Chevreuse had overcome Lawrence Gerald’s unwillingness to confess to him; and the three women, so different in all else, united in the one ardent belief that the prayer of faith would save the sick man, and that, when his conscience should be quite disburdened, and his soul enlightened by the comforts and exhortations which such a man as F. Chevreuse could offer, his body would feel the effects of that inward healing, and throw off its burden too. In an adjoining room sat Louis Ferrier, biting his nails, having been forbidden by his mother to seek distraction in more cheerful scenes. He watched the women while they knelt, and even drew a little nearer to listen to their low‐voiced prayer, but lacked the piety to join them. He was both annoyed and frightened by the gloomy circumstances in which he found himself, and, like most men of slack religious belief and practice, felt more safe to have pious women by him in times of danger. John had taken his place on a low stool underneath the stairs, and had an almost grotesque appearance of being at the same time hiding and alert. With his head advanced, and his neck twisted, he stared steadfastly up the stairway at the door within which the priest had disappeared.