g home two
of their number to Rome, to give an account of the work, and to get more
help, if possible, in order that the conversion might be carried further
into the country; and they decided to do so. It was my right to be one
of the two, and I took it. My companion was a young priest less strong
than the rest, and we left the mission and after a long journey we got
home safely. I meant to go to the first bishop I met, and make my
confession.

"But when we came to Rome and we were giving an account of what had been
done, the young priest thrust me forward to speak, as was natural, and I
seemed to be a personage of importance, because I had lived through so
many perils and had outlived so many. We two were invited to dinner by
cardinals, and were admitted to a private audience of the Pope.
Everybody seemed to know what I had done, and even the liberal
newspapers praised my courage and devotion.

"I had no courage, for being full of vanity, I never confessed my sin.
But I would not go back to the mission, and when I could leave Rome, I
left the young priests there and went to Naples to see my father. He
had read what had been written about me, and was proud of me, and he
received me gladly, for he loved me and was a devout man. Six years had
passed since I had seen his wife, and though I trembled when I was just
about to see her, yet when she entered the room I knew that I did not
love her any more, and I was very much pleased to find that this sin, at
least, had left me.

"I lived with them several years, devoting myself to study, and I used
to say my mass in a church close by. For I was a priest by nature and
heart, and I had grown so used to my sin of sacrilege, that I shut my
eyes, and told myself that it was the wish of Heaven. But the truth is,
I was a coward. It was then that you first knew me and you know how my
father died and my stepmother married again, and how I undertook to be
the tutor of poor Bosio Macomer. But with years, the city grew
distasteful to me, and I wished to be alone, for Bosio was grown up, and
I had no heart for teaching any one else. I was also very poor, having
spent what my father left me, both on books, and in other ways of which
I need not speak because there was nothing wrong in what I did with the
money.

"And then, Count Macomer--the one who is now insane--offered to make me
curate of Muro and chaplain of the castle of the Serra, all of which
you know. And I, accustomed to my wi