mmunion of the Holy
Roman Catholic Church. I am sorry with all my heart that I have deferred
it for so long; and for all my sins."

(He said it quite distinctly, as if he had rehearsed it beforehand.)

Then the priest and he spoke together--the King repeating the priest's
words sometimes, and sometimes volunteering word or two of his own.

He said that through Christ's Passion he hoped to be saved; that he was
in charity with all the world; that he pardoned his enemies most
heartily, and desired pardon of all whom he had offended; that if God
would yet spare him, he would amend his life in every particular.

All that I heard with my own ears, and with inexpressible comfort. His
Majesty's voice was low, but very distinct, though sometimes he spoke
scarce above a whisper; and I do not think that any man who heard him
could doubt his sincerity--however late it was to shew it. But he was
not altogether too late, thank God!

* * * * *

So soon as His Majesty began his confession, after Mr. Huddleston's
moving him to it, I slipped away from the door and began, as softly as I
could to walk up and down the little chamber again. I was satisfied
beyond measure: yet it seemed to me sometimes near incredible that I
should in very truth, be here at such a time, and that I should have
been, under God's merciful Providence, the instrument in such an affair.
My life was ended, I knew well enough now, in all matters that the world
counts life to consist of; yet was there ever such an ending? I had seen
all else go from me--my natural activities of every kind, my ambitions,
even the most sacred thing that the world can give, after the Love of
God, and that is the love of a woman! Yet the one purely supernatural
end that I had set before me--that end to which, four days ago, I had
said, as I thought, good-bye for ever in the Duchess of Portsmouth's
gallery--this was the one single thing that was mine after all. I could
take that at least with me into the cloister, and could praise God for
it all my life long--I mean the conversion of the man that was called
King of England, the man who, for all his sins and his treatment of me,
I yet loved as I have never loved any other man on earth. I think that
in those minutes of sorrow and joy as I paced up and down the little
room, my dearest Dolly was not very far away from me and that she knew
all that I felt.

Once--in a loud broken voice through the door--I