but it needed to be evoked, so as
not to be any longer stifled and perverted by the vehemence of his
physical nature. When he left me, after the great catastrophe which
changed him from the mere exaggerated child, gratifying every passion
with violence, I knew it depended on what hands he would fall into,
whether the spiritual or the animal would have the mastery. Madam, it
was into your hands that he fell, and I thank God for it, even more
than for the deliverance that my dear pupil has gained for me."

He had tears in his eyes as he took my hand and kissed it, and very
much overpowered I was. I had somewhat dreaded finding him a
free-thinker, but there was something in both speeches that consoled
me, and he afterwards said to me: "Madam, in our youth intellectual
Catholics are apt to reject what our reason will not accept. We love
not authority. In age we gain sympathy with authority, and experience
has taught us that there can be a Wisdom surpassing our own. We have
proved for ourselves that love cannot live without faith."

And Harold told me on the evening of their return, with much concern,
that the old man had made up his mind that, so soon as his health
should be sufficiently restored, he would make retreat among the monks
of La Trappe experimentally, and should probably take the vows. "I
don't see that his pardon has done much good," he said, and did not
greatly accept my representation of the marvellous difference it must
make to a Roman Catholic to be no longer isolated from the offices of
religion. He had made up his mind to come into Sydney to die, but he
was too poor to have lived anywhere but under the Boola Boola rock.

It was a very quietly glad evening, as we three sat round the open
window, and asked and answered questions. Harold said he would come to
the wedding with me the next day; he must see old Eu married; and,
besides, he wanted to give up to him the three nuggets, which had been
rather a serious charge. Harold, Prometesky, and Dermot had each
carried one, in case of any disaster, that there might be three
chances; but now they were all three laid in my lap--wonderful things,
one a little larger than the others, but all curiously apple-like in
form, such gifts as a bride has seldom had.

There was the account of the sale of Boola Boola to be rendered up too;
and the place had risen so much in value that it had brought in far
more than Harold had expected when leaving England, so t