ue to seek in this treacherous world.

"Oh, my God, give me strength to conquer anger."

The servant opened the door, but seeing the priest upon his knees, she
closed it quietly, and the priest prayed that if sin had been committed
he might bear the punishment.

And on rising from his knees he felt that his duty was to seek out the
sinful couple. But how to speak to them of their sins? The sin was not
their's. He was the original wrong-doer. If Ned Kavanagh and Mary Byrne
were to die and lose their immortal souls, how could the man who had
been the cause of the loss of two immortal souls, save his own, and the
consequences of his refusal to marry Ned Kavanagh and Mary Byrne seemed
to reach to the very ends of Eternity.

He walked to his uncle's with great swift steps, hardly seeing his
parishioners as he passed them on the road.

"Is Father Stafford in?"

"Yes, your reverence."

"Uncle John, I have come to consult you."

The priest sat huddled in his arm-chair over the fire, and Father
Maguire noticed that his cassock was covered with snuff, and he noticed
the fringe of reddish hair about the great bald head, and he noticed
the fat inert hands. And he noticed these things more explicitly than
he had ever noticed them before, and he wondered why he noticed them so
explicitly, for his mind was intent on a matter of great spiritual
importance.

"I have come to ask you," Father Tom said, "regarding the blame
attaching to a priest who refuses to marry a young man and a young
woman, there being no impediment of consanguinity or other."

"But have you refused to marry anyone because they couldn't pay you
your dues?"

"Listen, the church is falling."

"My dear Tom, you should not have refused to marry them," he said, as
soon as his soul-stricken curate had laid the matter before him.

"Nothing can justify my action in refusing to marry them," said Father
Tom, "nothing. Uncle John, I know that you can extenuate, that you are
kind, but I do not see it is possible to look at it from any other
side."

"My dear Tom, you are not sure they remained together; the only
knowledge you have of the circumstances you obtained from that old
woman, Biddy M'Hale, who cannot tell a story properly. An old gossip,
who manufactures stories out of the slightest materials ... but who
sells excellent eggs; her eggs are always fresh. I had two this
morning."

"Uncle John, I did not come here to be laughed at."

"I am not laughing