nervous system included,
being now, somewhat to my relief, discussed and done with--"is it
permitted me to ask what your religion is? Are you a Catholic?"

I looked up in some surprise--"A Catholic? No! Why suggest such an
idea?"

"The manner in which you were consigned to me last night made me doubt."

"I consigned to you? But, indeed, I forget. It yet remains for me to
learn how I fell into your hands."

"Why, under circumstances that puzzled me. I had been in attendance all
day yesterday on a case of singularly interesting and critical
character; the disease being rare, and its treatment doubtful: I saw a
similar and still finer case in a hospital in Paris; but that will not
interest you. At last a mitigation of the patient's most urgent
symptoms (acute pain is one of its accompaniments) liberated me, and I
set out homeward. My shortest way lay through the Basse-Ville, and as
the night was excessively dark, wild, and wet, I took it. In riding
past an old church belonging to a community of Beguines, I saw by a
lamp burning over the porch or deep arch of the entrance, a priest
lifting some object in his arms. The lamp was bright enough to reveal
the priest's features clearly, and I recognised him; he was a man I
have often met by the sick beds of both rich and poor: and chiefly the
latter. He is, I think, a good old man, far better than most of his
class in this country; superior, indeed, in every way, better informed,
as well as more devoted to duty. Our eyes met; he called on me to stop:
what he supported was a woman, fainting or dying. I alighted.

"'This person is one of your countrywomen,' he said: 'save her, if she
is not dead.'

"My countrywoman, on examination, turned out to be the English teacher
at Madame Beck's pensionnat. She was perfectly unconscious, perfectly
bloodless, and nearly cold.

"'What does it all mean?' was my inquiry.

"He communicated a curious account; that you had been to him that
evening at confessional; that your exhausted and suffering appearance,
coupled with some things you had said--"

"Things I had said? I wonder what things!"

"Awful crimes, no doubt; but he did not tell me what: there, you know,
the seal of the confessional checked his garrulity, and my curiosity.
Your confidences, however, had not made an enemy of the good father; it
seems he was so struck, and felt so sorry that you should be out on
such a night alone, that he had esteemed it a Christian duty to watch