I was considering what I should do. I reddened excited under my mask, and rose to my feet again. After all these months of obliteration, a wonderful thought was beginning to dawn in me--the thought of my sex as a possible factor in my redemption. For how long, my dear friend, had I not lost the art to play it for the value of so much as a sugar-plum? And what was there now to prevent me from reassuming that charming confidence in men which so disarms them? Alas! it was a vain recovery here--a waste of art on a material no more responsive to it than a pulpit hassock. “How did you know?” he repeated angrily. “Because,” I whispered, blushing, and lingering over the sensation I felt I was about to produce--“because--Father--I am a little daughter of the Church.” He had been gnawing his knuckles, as he bent his morose brows on me; and at my words stopped suddenly, his great teeth bared, like a dog looking up from a bone. “I am the child of a great gentleman. I was stolen from my parents,” I said, and clasped my hands to him. “I am not a boy at all, but a girl.” He leapt up as if I had struck him. “How dare you!” he shouted; then, choking, in another hoarse reaction to panic, “How dare you try to impose upon me!” “I’m not!” I cried, in a childish fury of chagrin over his insensibility. “It’s true, every word. My mother was a Sister of les Madelonnettes, and I was stolen from her, and I want to be sent back.” I did not in truth, save in so far as that way only lay my chance of restoration to my darling father. But the point was inessential. The priest’s eyes, dilated monstrosities, devoured me through their lenses. “Les Madelonnettes--the Magdalens!” he muttered, amazed and frowning. His hand, caressing his chin, grated on the stubble of it. “Come,” he said brutally, “I’m an old bird to be caught by chaff. Confess to me, if you’re a Catholic, you wretched little sinner.” I wanted nothing better. This sacrament of penance must convince and win him. In a moment my young elastic soul had leapt the dark interlude which divided me from my past, and my little feet were tripping once more in fancy down the royal prince’s table. I fell on my knees. “Say your Confiteor,” he commanded harshly. I repeated it without a mistake. “Humph!” said he. “What are you waiting for?” I told him my whole story. He listened to it, after the first, abstractedly, with one eye caressing his abominable book. At the end he gave me absolution, canvassing me distastefully as he pondered the penance. Presently he spoke. “I order you,” he said, “twenty Ave Marias, and to return to your master.” I jumped to my feet. “My master--the sweep!” I cried. “Certainly,” he replied stubbornly. “You were obviously the foundling of Providence, which has elected this honest tradesman to be your foster-father.” “But, my mother?” I choked.