wavers; and it is a true one.'

Then:

'I don't know how I have managed to write this letter--poor stuff as it is.
My mind at this moment is busy neither with speculation nor politics. I am
perched for the night on the side of a mountain thickly covered with beech
woods, in a remote Calabrian hamlet, where however last year some pushing
person built a small 'health resort,' to which a few visitors come from
Naples and even from Rome. The woods are vast, the people savage. The
brigands are gone, or going; of electric light there is plenty. I came
this morning, and shall be gone to-morrow. I am a pilgrim on the face of
Italy. For six weeks I have wandered like this, from the Northern Abruzzi
downwards. Wherever holiday folk go to escape from the heat of the plains,
I go. But my object is not theirs.... Nor is it yours, Padre. There are
many quests in the world. Mine is one of the oldest that man knows. My
heart pursues it, untired. And in the end I shall win to my goal.'

The old priest read the last paragraph in a hurried, unsteady voice. At
every sentence he became aware of some electrical effect upon the delicate
frame and face beside him; but he read on--not knowing how to save
himself--lest she should think that he had omitted anything.

When he dropped the letter his hands, too, shook. There was a silence.

Slowly Eleanor dragged herself higher in her chair; she pushed her hat back
from her forehead; she turned her white drawn face upon the priest.

'Father,' she said, bending towards him, 'you are a priest--and a
confessor?'