nfinite and absolute, without any bargaining as to
measure.

"But you tremble, you dare not tell this terrible God your weakness and
childishness; well! _tell them to your father_; a father has a right to
know the secrets of his child. He is an indulgent father, who wants to
know them only to absolve them. He is a sinner like yourself: has he
then a right to be severe? Come, then, my child, come and tell
me--what you have not dared to whisper in your mother's ear; tell it
me; who will ever know?"

Then is it, amid sobs and sighs, from the choking heaving breast that
the fatal word rises to the lips: it escapes, and she hides her head.
Oh! he who heard that has gained an immense advantage, and will keep
it. Would to God that he did not abuse it! It was heard, remember,
not by the wood and the dark oak of the confessional, but by ears of
flesh and blood.

And this man now knows of this woman, what the husband has not known in
all the long effusion of his heart by day and night, what even her own
mother does not know, who thinks she knows her entirely, having had her
so many times a naked infant upon her knees.

This man knows, and will know--don't be afraid of his forgetting it.
If the confession is in good hands, so much the better, for it is for
ever. And she, she knows full well she has a master of her intimate
thoughts. Never will she pass by that man without casting down her
eyes.

The day when this mystery was imparted, he was very near her, she felt
it. On a higher seat, he seemed to have an irresistible ascendency
over her. A magnetic influence has vanquished her, for she wished not
to speak, and she spoke in spite of herself. She felt herself
fascinated, like the bird by the serpent.

So far, however, there is no art on the side of the priest. The force
of circumstances has done everything, that of religious institution,
and that of nature. As a priest, he received her at his knees, and
listened to her. Then, master of her secret, of her thoughts, the
thoughts of a woman, he became man again, without, perhaps, either
wishing or knowing it, and laid upon her, weakened and disarmed, the
heavy hand of man.

And her family now? her husband? Who will dare to assert that his
position is the same as before?

Every reflecting mind knows full well that thought is the most personal
part of the person. The master of a person's thoughts is he to whom
the person belongs. The priest has the soul fast