’Upon these people I am dependent for my daily bread, and they are dependent upon me for spiritual consolation.  I baptize them, I marry them, and I bury them.  How they think of me, I know not.  I suppose they hardly think at all.  When they return home at night they have little time for thinking; their bodies are too fatigued with the labour of the fields.  But as I sit thinking of them, I regret to say that my fear often is that I shall never see any human beings but them; and I dream of long rambles in the French country, resting at towns, reading in libraries.  A voice whispers, “You could do very well with a little of her life, but you will never know any other life but your present one.”  A great bitterness comes up, a little madness gathers behind the eyes; I walk about the room and then I sit down, stunned by the sudden conviction that life is, after all, a very squalid thing—­something that I would like to kick like an old hat down a road.

’The conflict going on within me goes on within every man, but without this conflict life would be superficial; we shouldn’t know the deeper life.  Duty has its rewards as well as its pain, and the knowledge that I am passing through a time of probationship sustains me.  I know I shall come out of it all a stronger man.

‘OLIVER GOGARTY.’

After posting his letter he walked home, congratulating himself that he had made it plain to her that he was not a man she could dupe.  Her letter was written plainly, and the more he thought of her letter the clearer did it seem that it was inspired by Poole.  But what could Poole’s reason be for wishing him to leave Ireland, to go abroad?  It was certain that if Poole were in love with Nora he would do all in his power to keep a poor priest (was it thus they spoke of him?) in Ireland.  Poole might wish to make a fool of him, but what was her reason for advising him to go abroad?  Revenge was too strong a word.

In the course of the evening it suddenly struck him that, after all, she might have written her letter with a view of inducing him to come to Rome.  She was so capricious that it was not impossible that she had written quite sincerely, and wished him out there with her.  She was so many-sided, and he fell to thinking of her character, without being able to arrive at any clear estimate of it, with this result, however—­that he could not drive out the belief that she had written him an insincere letter.  Or did she wish to revenge herself?  The thought brought him to his feet, for he could never forget how deeply he had wronged her—­it was through his fault that she had become Mr. Poole’s secretary—­maybe his mistress.  If he had not preached that sermon, she would be teaching the choir in his parish.  But, good heavens! what use was there in going over all that again?  He walked to the window and stood there watching the still autumn weather—­a dull leaden sky, without a ray of light upon the grass, or a wind in the trees—­thinking that these