use. I was just crazy to help all the scientists,--once!--but
they argued and quarrelled so much as to which 'society' deserved most
money that I dropped the whole offer, and started 'scientising' myself.
There is one man I tried to lift out of his brain-bog,--but he would
have none of me, and he is still in his bog!"

"Oh! There is one man!" said Aloysius, with a smile.

"Yes, good father!" And Morgana left the passion-flowers and moved
slowly back to her seat on the stone-bench--"There is one man! He was
my third and last experience of happiness. When I first met him, my
whole heart gave itself in one big pulsation--but like a wave of the
sea, the pulsation recoiled, and never again beat on the grim rock of
human egoism!" She laughed gaily, and a delicate colour flushed her
face. "But I was happy while the 'wave' lasted,--and when it broke, I
still played on the shore with its pretty foam-bells."

"You loved this man?" and the priest's grave eyes dwelt on her
searchingly.

"I suppose so--for the moment! Yet no,--it was not love--it was just an
'attraction'--he was--he IS--clever, and thinks he can change the face
of the world. But he is fooling with fire! I tell you I tried to help
him--for he is deadly poor. But he would have none of me nor of what he
calls my 'vulgar wealth.' This is a case in point where wealth is
useless! You see?"

Don Aloysius was silent.

"Then"--Morgana went on--"Alison is right. The witchery of the Northern
Highlands is in my blood,--never a love for me--alone I am--alone I
must be!--never a love for a 'fey' woman!"

Over the priest's face there passed a quiver as of sudden pain.

"You wrong yourself, my child"--he said, slowly--"You wrong yourself
very greatly! You have a power of which you appear to be unconscious--a
great, a terrible power!--you compel interest--you attract the love of
others even if you yourself love no one--you draw the very soul out of
a man--"

He paused, abruptly.

Morgana raised her eyes,--the blue lightning gleam flashed in their
depths.

"Ah, yes!" she half whispered--"I know I have THAT power!"

Don Aloysius rose to his feet.

"Then,--if you know it,--in God's name do not exercise it!" he said.

His voice shook--and with his right hand he gripped the crucifix he
wore as though it were a weapon of self-defence. Morgana looked at him
wonderingly for a moment,--then drooped her head with a strange little
air of sudden penitence. Aloysius drew a qui