es, your reverence, they went home."

"Mary Byrne went home with her own people, I suppose, and Ned went back
to his home."

"I don't know, your reverence, what they did."

"Well, what else did Kate Kavanagh tell you?"

"She had just left her brother and Mary, and they were going towards
the Peak. That is what Kate told me when I met her on the road."

"Mary Byrne would not go to live with a man to whom she was not
married. But you told me that Kate said she had just left Mary Byrne
and her brother."

"Yes, they were just coming out of the cabin," said Biddy. "She passed
them on the road."

"Out of whose cabin?" said the priest.

"Out of Ned's cabin. I know it must have been out of Ned's cabin,
because she said she met them at the cross roads."

He questioned the old woman, but she grew less and less explicit.

"I don't like to think this of Mary Byrne, but after so much dancing
and drinking, it is impossible to say what might not have happened."

"I suppose they forgot your reverence didn't marry them."

"Forgot!" said the priest. "A sin has been committed, and through my
fault."

"They will come to your reverence to-morrow when they are feeling a
little better."

The priest did not answer, and Biddy said:--

"Am I to take away my money, or will your reverence keep it for the
stained glass window."

"The church is tumbling down, and before it is built up you want me to
put up statues."

"I'd like a window as well or better."

"I've got other things to think of now."

"Your reverence is very busy. If I had known it I would not have come
disturbing you. But I'll take my money with me."

"Yes, take your money," he said. "Go home quietly, and say nothing
about what you have told me. I must think over what is best to be done."

Biddy hurried away gathering her shawl about her, and this great strong
man who had taken Pat Connex by the collar and could have thrown him
out of the school-room, fell on his knees and prayed that God might
forgive him the avarice and anger that had caused him to refuse to
marry Ned Kavanagh and Mary Byrne.

"Oh! my God, oh! my God," he said, "Thou knowest that it was not for
myself that I wanted the money, it was to build up Thine Own House."

He remembered that his uncle had warned him again and again aginst the
sin of anger. He had thought lightly of his uncle's counsels, and he
had not practised the virtue of humility, which, as St. Teresa said,
was the surest virt