e about him than he knew himself. But without
withdrawing his eyes from the fire he continued talking till Catherine's
step was heard outside.

'She's coming to lay the cloth for our tea,' Father Oliver said. And
Father O'Grady answered:

'I shall be glad of a cup of tea.'

'Must you really go after tea?' Father Oliver asked; and again he begged
Father O'Grady to stay for dinner. But Father O'Grady, as if he felt
that the object of his visit had been accomplished, spoke of the drive
back to Tinnick and of the convenience of the branch line of railway. It
was a convenience certainly, but it was also an inconvenience, owing to
the fact that the trains run from Tinnick sometimes missed the mail
train; and this led Father Oliver to speak of the work he was striving
to accomplish, the roofing of Kilronan Abbey, and many other things, and
the time passed without their feeling it till the car came round to take
Father O'Grady away.

'He goes as a dream goes,' Father Oliver said, and a few minutes
afterwards he was sitting alone by his turf fire, asking himself in what
dreams differed from reality. For like a dream Father O'Grady had come
and he had gone, never to return. 'But does anything return?' he asked
himself, and he looked round his room, wondering why the chairs and
tables did not speak to him, and why life was not different from what it
was. He could hear Catherine at work in the kitchen preparing his
dinner, she would bring it to him as she had done yesterday, he would
eat it, he would sit up smoking his pipe for a while, and about eleven
o'clock go to his bed. He would lie down in it, and rise and say Mass
and see his parishioners. All these things he had done many times
before, and he would go on doing them till the day of his death--Until
the day of my death,' he repeated, 'never seeing her again, never seeing
him. Why did he come here?' And he was surprised that he could find no
answer to any of the questions that he put to himself. 'Nothing will
happen again in my life--nothing of any interest. This is the end! And
if I did go to London, of what should I speak to him? It will be better
to try to forget it all, and return, if I can, to the man I was before I
knew her;' and he stood stock still, thinking that without this memory
he would not be himself.

Father O'Grady's coming had been a pleasure to him, for they had talked
together; he had confessed to him; had been shriven. At that moment he
caught sight