ter in that way, and help me with your strength and love,
through your understanding, as I feel you do help, whenever I make you
my confessions. Since I've begun to write you, as in old days when you
were in the flesh, I've felt your advice come to me in electric flashes.
I'm sure I don't just imagine this. It's real, dear Padre, and makes all
the difference to me that a rope flung out over dark waters would make
to a drowning man.

At three o'clock I was in the garden. It was cold, but I didn't care.
Besides, I was too excited to feel the chill. I wanted to be out of
doors because there would be people about, and no chance for Julian to
try and kiss my hand--no vulgar temptation for me to box his ears!

He was already waiting, strolling up and down, smoking a cigarette which
he threw away at sight of me. Evidently he'd decided on this occasion
not to be frivolous!

I selected a seat safely commanded by many windows. "Now!" I said,
sitting down close to one end of the bench.

Julian took the other end, but sat gazing straight at me without a word.
There was an odd expression on his face. I didn't know how to read it,
or to guess what was to come. But there was nothing Puckish about the
enemy at that moment. He looked nervous--almost as if he were afraid. I
thought of something you told me when I was quite small, Padre: how the
Romans of old used to send packets of good news bound with laurel, or of
bad news, tied with the plumes of ravens. I stared into Julian
O'Farrell's stare, and wished that he'd stuck a green leaf or a black
feather in his buttonhole to prepare my mind.

"Yes--now!" he echoed at last, as if he'd suddenly waked up to my
challenge. "Well, a man blew into this hotel last night--a lame
Frenchman with a face like a boiled ghost. I was writing an important
telegram (I'll tell you about that later), when I heard this person ask
the concierge if a Miss Mary O'Malley was staying in the house. That
made me open my eyes--because he was of the lower _bourgeois_ class, and
hadn't the air of being--so to speak--in your set. It seemed as if 'twas
up to me to tackle him; so I did. I introduced myself as a friend of
Miss O'Malley's, travelling with her party. I explained that Miss
O'Malley was taking care of an old lady who'd been ill and was tired
after a long journey. I asked if he'd like to give a message. He said he
would. But first he began to explain who he was: an Alsatian by birth,
named Muller, corpora