What use is this you have made of your Holy Orders? You hear the
confessions of a dying man, you absolve and you bless him, and come
away from the poor dead thief to shout his crimes in the ears of
the world, to dishonor him, to be a discredit to your calling. Who
could trust again such a man as you have proved to be--faithless to
himself, faithless to his Church, faithless to his God?"

But Cragstone was on the sands at his accuser's feet. "Oh! my
Lord," he cried, "I meant only to save the name of a poor,
mistrusted girl, selfishly, perhaps, but I would have done the
same thing just for humanity's sake had it been another to whom
injustice was done."

"Your plea of justice is worse than weak; to save the good name
of the living is it just to rob the dead?"

The Bishop's voice was like iron.

"I did not realize I was a priest, I only knew I was a _man_," and
with these words Cragstone arose and looked fearlessly, even
proudly, at the one who stood his judge.

"Is it not better, my Lord, to serve the living than the dead?"

"And bring reproach upon your Church?" said the Bishop, sternly.

It was the first thought Cragstone ever had of his official crime;
he staggered under the horror of it, and the little, dark, silent
figure, that had followed them unseen, realized in her hiding amid
the shadows that the man who had lifted her into the light was
himself being thrust down into irremediable darkness. But Cragstone
only saw the Bishop looking at him as from a supreme height, he
only felt the final stinging lash in the words: "When a man
disregards the most sacred offices of his God, he will hardly
reverence the claims of justice of a simple woman who knows not his
world, and if he so easily flings his God away for a woman, just so
easily will he fling her away for other gods."

And Lydia, with eyes that blazed like flame, watched the Bishop
turn and walk frigidly up the sands, his indignation against this
outrager of the Church declaring itself in every footfall.

Cragstone flung himself down, burying his face in his hands. What a
wreck he had made of life! He saw his future, loveless, for no woman
would trust him now; even the one whose name he had saved would
probably be more unforgiving than the Church; it was the way
with women when a man abandoned God and honor for them; and this
nameless but blackest of sins, this falsity to one poor dying
sinner, would stand between him and heaven forever, though through