ed crash; the rain came down; it was as if the
rivers of heaven had been opened suddenly. Once he thought the storm was
over; but the thunder crashed again, the rain began to thicken; there
was another flash and another crash, and the pour began again. But all
the while the storm was wearing itself out, and he began to wonder if a
sullen day, ending in this apocalypse, would pass into a cheerful
evening. It seemed as if it would, for some blue was showing between the
clouds drifting westward, threatening every moment to blot out the blue,
but the clouds continued to brighten at the edges. 'The beginning of the
sunset,' the priest said; and he went out on his lawn and stood watching
the swallows in the shining air, their dipping, swerving flight showing
against a background of dappled clouds. He had never known so
extraordinary a change; and he walked to and fro in the freshened air,
thinking that Nora's health might not have withstood the strain of
trudging from street to street, teaching the piano at two shillings an
hour, returning home late at night to a poky little lodging, eating any
food a landlady might choose to give her. As a music teacher she would
have had great difficulty in supporting herself and her baby, and it
pleased him to imagine the child as very like her mother; and returning
to the house, he added this paragraph:

'I was interrupted while writing this letter by a sudden darkening of
the light, and when I went to the window the sky seemed to have sunk
close to the earth, and there was a dreadful silence underneath it. I
was driven back by a flash of lightning, and the thunder was terrifying.
A most extraordinary storm lasting for no more than an hour, if that,
and then dispersing into a fine evening. It was a pleasure to see the
change--the lake shrouded in mist, with ducks talking softly in the
reeds, and swallows high up, advancing in groups like dancers on a
background of dappled clouds.

'I have come back to my letter to ask if you would like me to go to see
your baby? Father O'Grady and I will go together if I go to London, and
I will write to you about it. You will be glad, no doubt, to hear that
the child is going on well.

'Very sincerely yours,

'OLIVER GOGARTY.'

_From Father Oliver Gogarty to Miss Nora Glynn._

'GARRANARD, BOHOLA,

'_September_ 4, 19--.

'Forgive me, my dear friend, but I am compelled to write to apologize
for the introduction of my troubles of conscience an