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"I shall raise the question of the liberty of instruction. The raw liberals will support us. Like fools, they admit us to equal rights; when our privileges, our influence of the confessional, our obedience to Rome, all place us beyond the circle of equal rights, by the advantages which we enjoy. Double fools! they think us disarmed, because they have disarmed themselves towards us.

It would seem rather that there is a fixed determination that the priests shall keep to their business, that of the service of religion, and shall not be allowed to interfere in secular education, or, by use of the confessional, to dominate the family; and, above all, that the convents shall not be filled by force, undue persuasion, or cajolery.

In the confessional," he added, in a low voice, "is a priest, a friend of mine, who will tell him that he drew you for safety out of the crowd, and placed you under his own protection in this chapel. Therefore, everything is arranged to deceive him." At these words the tears of the poor woman stopped, but an expression of sadness settled down on her face. "No one can deceive him," she said.

Without doubting the substantial truth of his guest's story, the good Padre Esteban was not unwilling to have it corroborated by such details as he thought he could collect among the Excelsior's passengers. His own experience in the confessional had taught him the unreliability of human evidence, and the vagaries of both conscientious and unconscious suppression.

No other window looked down upon the spot, and its seclusion was often a great comfort to Père Jerome. Up and down this path, but a few steps in its entire length, the priest was walking, taking the air for a few moments after a prolonged sitting in the confessional. Penitents had been numerous this afternoon. He was thinking of Ursin.

It would have explained so much, if he had given it to Billy Louise to put in her blue plush treasure box. It would even have brought to life that first faith in him. She might have told him one never can foresee the lengths to which a woman's confessional mood will carry her about that corral hidden in the canyon, and of her sickening certainty that she had seen him ride stealthily away from it.

It was like a voice within the gate of a confessional. "Do you love him?" it said. "I do not know." The vast sympathy in the voice continued. "You do not know? it is impossible! Love is or it is not. It is the longing of elements torn asunder, at the beginning of things, to be rejoined." The girl turned swiftly, her body erect, her face lifted. "But this great act," she cried.

Certain, too, it is said to be that this incident is taken directly from Miss Bronté's own experience. A writer in "Macmillan" says, "During one of the long holidays, when her mind was restless and disturbed, she found sympathy, if not peace, in the counsels of a priest in the confessional, who pitied and soothed her troubled spirit without attempting to enmesh it in the folds of Romanism."

She might marry him before he knew what he was about; and in such a case the Rector could not have taken his oath at his own private confessional that he would have been so deeply miserable as the circumstances might infer. No wonder he was alarmed at the position in which he found himself; nobody could predict how it might end.

He looked at her in mute amaze, and she smiled. "Do come up to tea some afternoon!" she said coaxingly, "We should be so glad to see you! I know Maryllia would like it she thinks you are rather rude, you know! I'm to be here all the summer, but I'll try to be good and not say things to vex you. And as you're a clergyman, I can tell you all about myself like the confessional secrets!