sion, "For truly, madam, in your goodness is my only hope."

Then he knelt on one knee and kissed the hand she held out to him,
while desiring him to speak freely to her.

"Nay, madam, I fear I shall startle you, when I lay before you the
only chance that can aid me to overcome the demon that is in me."

"My poor--"

"Call me your boy, as when I was here seven years ago. Let me sit
at your feet as then and listen to me."

"Indeed I will, my dear boy," and she laid her hand on his dark
head. "Tell me all that is in your heart."

"Ah, dear lady, that is not soon done! You and Mistress Anne, as
you well know, first awoke me from my firm belief that I was none
other than an elf, and yet there have since been times when I have
doubted whether it were not indeed the truth."

"Nay, Peregrine, at years of discretion you should have outgrown old
wives' tales."

"Better be an elf at once--a soulless creature of the elements--than
the sport of an evil spirit doomed to perdition," he bitterly
exclaimed.

"Hush, hush! You know not what you are saying!"

"I know it too well, madam! There are times when I long and wish
after goodness--nay, when Heaven seems open to me--and I resolve and
strive after a perfect life; but again comes the wild, passionate
dragging, as it were, into all that at other moments I most loathe
and abhor, and I become no more my own master. Ah!"

There was misery in his voice, and he clutched the long hair on each
side of his face with his hands.

"St. Paul felt the same," said Mrs. Woodford gently.

"'Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?' Ay, ay! how
many times have I not groaned that forth! And so, if that Father at
Turin were right, I am but as Paul was when he was Saul. Madam, is
it not possible that I was never truly baptized?" he cried eagerly.

"Impossible, Peregrine. Was not Mr. Horncastle chaplain when you
were born? Yes; and I have heard my brother say that both he and
your father held the same views as the Church upon baptism."

"So I thought; but Father Geronimo says that at the best it was but
heretical baptism, and belike hastily and ineffectually performed."

"Put that aside, Peregrine. It is only a temptation and
allurement."

"It is an allurement you know not how strong," said the poor youth.
"Could I only bring myself to believe all that Father Geronimo does,
and fall down before his Madonnas and saints, then could I hope for
a new nature, and scou