Another voice, the voice of her truest self, answered: “Ah! but he is young. Remember he is young—young—young—and you, when you were his age, cared terribly to succeed. You say now that success is empty, but at least you had the satisfaction of learning the fact for yourself. You did not have to take another’s word for it, and let your chance pass you by, just at the moment of grasping it. If he is to be left without you, what will he have then to make up for the great moment lost? “Nay, worse—what will he have left to spur him to try and regain his proud position, and go on up the heights of fame? And for you, of all people, to deal this blow to his future—the ambitious future which you yourself have fostered and nourished with such care.” The hours wore on, and still, in spite of the awful physical exhaustion, the mental battle raged, draining away strength that should have been carefully nursed for each bad hour of many days ahead. The nurse watched beside her with growing alarm, seeing the feverishness and restlessness, where absolute quiet was imperative. At last she went to her softly, and said, in a sweet, low voice: “Madame is in trouble. Madame is fretting. It is not good. Madame must try to rest.” Lorraine turned her feverish, pain-driven eyes to the kindly face, with a look of beseeching, but she made no reply. The nurse laid her cool hand on the burning forehead. “Madame is not a Catholic, but the priest brings healing to all. Shall I ask him to come and pray, that peace may be given to the sick mind?” “I cannot confess,” Lorraine breathed a little gaspingly. “I could not bring myself to it.” “It is not necessary. The priest will come to pray if madame wishes.” “Yes,” was the low response; “please ask him.” The little old man who took care of the souls of the little old-world village, and had done for three parts of a century, came to her at once, with a womanly tenderness in his face. In a low voice he blessed her, and then knelt down and prayed quietly. After a time, some of the anguish died out of Lorraine’s eyes. She turned to him weakly and said: “I am not a Catholic. I do not know if I am anything, but I want to ask you something. If one has sinned, and led another astray, might an act of renunciation perhaps save that other from the consequences of the sin that was not his?” “Self-sacrifice and renunciation are ever pleasing to God,” he told her simply. “He knows that whatever else there is in a heart, with self-sacrifice there is also purity and nobility.” “If I thought I alone need bear the consequences, I think I could do anything,” she whispered—“bear anything, renounce anything.”