'and whatever comes of it I'll be
greatly obliged to you.'

'Well, don't be delaying too long. And look you here'--his voice sank
almost to a whisper--'don't be talking about what I've said to you.
People are queer, and if Father Joyce down in Clifden came to hear
that I was working for a Protestant he'd be sure to go talking to the
Archbishop, and I'd never get to the end of the fuss that would be
made.'

'Indeed, it's very good of you, especially considering who I am--I mean,
my father being a convert, and----'

'Say no more,' said the priest--'say no more. Your father was a good
man, Catholic or Protestant. I'm not one of these bitter kind of
priests, Mr. Con-neally. I can be a good Catholic without hating my
neighbours. I don't hold with all this bullyragging in newspapers about
"sourfaces" and "saved." Maybe that's the reason that I'm stuck down
here at the other end of nowhere all my life, and never got promotion
or praise. But what do I care as long as they let me alone to do my work
for the people? I'm not afraid to say it to you, Mr. Conneally, for you
won't want to get me into trouble, but it's my belief that there's many
of our priests would rather have grand churches than contented people.
They're fonder of Rome than they are of Ireland.'

'Really, Father Moran,' said Hyacinth, smiling, 'if you go on like this,
I shall expect to hear of your turning Protestant.'

'God forbid, Mr. Conneally! I wish you well. I wish you to be here among
us, and to be prosperous; but the dearest wish of my heart for you is
that I might see you back in the Catholic Church, believing the creed of
your forefathers.'

The priest's suggestion attracted Hyacinth a great deal more than Dr.
Henry's. He liked the sea and the fishing, and he loved the simple
people among whom he had been brought up. His experiences in Dublin had
not encouraged him to be ambitious. Life in the great world--it was thus
that he thought of the bickerings of the Dublin Nationalists and the
schoolboy enthusiasms of college students--was not a very simple
thing. There was a complexity and a confusion in affairs which made
it difficult to hold to any cause devotedly. It seemed to him, looking
back, that Miss Goold's ideals--and she had ideals, as he knew--were
somehow vulgarized in their contact with the actual. He had seen
something of the joy she found in her conflict with O'Rourke, and it did
not seem to him to be pure or ennobling. At one time he was