That's what I've often said to myself; but there are limits to
the suffering one can bear....

DOMINICAN. There are no limits. Suff'ering's as boundless as grace.

MOTHER. First my husband leaves me for another woman.

DOMINICAN. Then let him go. He'll come crawling back again on his bare
knees!

MOTHER. And as you know, Father, my only daughter was married to
a doctor. But she left him and came home with a stranger, whom she
presented to me as her new husband.

DOMINICAN. That's not easy to understand. Divorce isn't recognised by
our religion.

MOTHER. No. But they'd crossed the frontier, to a land where there are
other laws. He's an Old Catholic, and he found a priest to marry them.

DOMINICAN. That's no real marriage, and can't be dissolved because it
never existed. But it can be nullified. Who is your present son-in-law?

MOTHER. Truly, I wish I knew! One thing I do know, and that's enough to
fill my cup of sorrow. He's been divorced and his wife and children live
in wretched circumstances.

DOMINICAN. A difficult case. But we'll find a way to put it right. What
does he do?

MOTHER. He's a writer; said to be famous at home.

DOMINICAN. Godless, too, I suppose?

MOTHER. Yes. At least he used to be; but since his second marriage he's
not known a happy hour. Fate, as he calls it, seized him with an iron
hand and drove him here in the shape of a ragged beggar. Ill-fortune
struck him blow after blow, so that I pitied him at the very moment he
fled from here. Then he wandered in the woods and, later, lay out in the
fields where he fell, till he was found by merciful folk and taken to a
convent. There he lay ill for three months, without our knowing where he
was.

DOMINICAN. Wait! Last year a man was brought to the Convent of St.
Saviour, where I'm Confessor, under the circumstances you describe.
Whilst he was feverish he opened his heart to me, and there was scarcely
a sin of which he didn't confess his guilt. But when he came to himself
again, he said he remembered nothing. So to prove him in heart and reins
I used the secret apostolic powers that are given us; and, as a trial,
employed the lesser curse. For when a crime's been done in secret, the
curse of Deuteronomy is read over the suspected man. If he's innocent,
he goes his way unscathed. But if he's struck by it, then, as Paul
relates, 'he is delivered unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh,
that his spirit may be saved.'

MOTHER. O God! It m