ou. She shook her head, saying you did not care
what might happen to her. I assured her that such a thing was not the
case, and begged of her to allow me to write to you; but I did not
obtain her consent until she began to see that if she withheld it any
longer we might think she was concealing some important fact. Moreover,
I impressed upon her that it was right that I should hear your story,
not because I disbelieved hers--I take it for granted the facts are
correctly stated--but in the event of your being able to say something
which would put a different complexion upon them.

'Yours very sincerely,

'MICHAEL O'GRADY.'

IV

After reading Father O'Grady's letter he looked round, fearing lest
someone should speak to him. Christy was already some distance away;
there was nobody else in sight; and feeling he was safe from
interruption, he went towards the wood, thinking of the good priest who
had saved her (in saving her Father O'Grady had saved him), and of the
waste of despair into which he would have drifted certainly if the news
had been that she had killed herself. He stood appalled, looking into
the green wood, aware of the mysterious life in the branches; and then
lay down to watch the insect life among the grass--a beetle pursuing its
little or great destiny. But he was too exalted to remain lying down;
the wood seemed to beckon him, and he asked if the madness of the woods
had overtaken him. Further on he came upon a chorus of finches singing
in some hawthorn-trees, and in Derrinrush he stopped to listen to the
silence that had suddenly fallen. A shadow floated by; he looked up: a
hawk was passing overhead, ready to attack rat or mouse moving among the
young birches and firs that were springing up in the clearance. The
light was violent, and the priest shaded his eyes. His feet sank in
sand, he tripped over tufts of rough grass, and was glad to get out of
this part of the wood into the shade of large trees.

Trees always interested him, and he began to think of their great roots
seeking the darkness, and of their branches lifting themselves in love
towards the light. He and these trees were one, for there is but one
life, one mother, one elemental substance out of which all has come.
That was it, and his thoughts paused. Only in union is there happiness,
and for many weary months he had been isolated, thrown out; but to-day
he had been drawn suddenly into the general life, he had become again
part of