Walter laughed; he drew himself back a little out of her reach. "I am not good," he said. "I have never been good. Often enough I have been disgusted with myself, and miserable by moments. But if that is the first thing, I do not know how to attain to it, for I am not good." She looked at him without any change in her face while he made this confession. It did not seem to make much impression upon her. "I can tell you," she said, "how to overcome the devil and all his ways; but it costs trouble, Lord Erradeen. Without that you will always be as you are, full of troubles and struggles: but you should thank your God that you cannot be content with ill-doing like those that are the children of perdition. To be content with it--that is the worst of all." "Well, then I am in a hopeful way, it appears," said Walter with a sort of laugh, "for I am certainly far enough from being content." After a minute's pause he added--"I said we should not plunge into this subject at once; tell me about yourself. Are you well? Are you better?" "I am well enough," she said, "but never will I be better. I have known that for many years--almost from the moment when, to get away from _him_, I fell off yon old walls, and became what you see." "To get away from--whom?" He glanced round him as she spoke with a look which was half alarmed and half defiant. "I know," he said, in a low voice, "what delusions are about." "From Him. What he is, or who he is, I know no more than you. I have thought like you that it was my own delusion. I have wondered from year to year if maybe I had deceived myself. But the upshot of all is what I tell you. I am lying here these thirty years and more, because, being very young, I had no command of myself, but was frightened and flew from Him." "It is against all possibility, all good sense, against everything one believes. I will not believe it," cried Walter; "you were young as you say, and frightened. And I was--a fool--unprepared, not knowing what to think."