'I don't think I thought of anything except to burn myself up with drink. I wanted to forget, and I saw myself walking ahead day after day, drinking at every public-house.'
'And just because I saved you, you thought you would come to save me?'
'There was something of that in it. Gad! it's very queer; there's no saying where things will begin and end. Pass me the tobacco, will you?'
Father Moran began to fill his pipe, and when he had finished filling it, he said:
'Now I must be going, and don't be trying to keep me; I've stopped long enough. If I were sent for a purpose—'
'But you don't believe seriously, Moran, that you were sent for a purpose?' Moran didn't answer, and his silence irritated Father Oliver, and, determined to probe his curate's conscience, he said: 'Aren't you satisfied now that it was only an idea of your own? You thought to find me gone, and here I am sitting before you.' After waiting for some time for Moran to speak, he said: 'You haven't answered me.'
'What should I be answering?'
'Do you still think you were sent for a purpose?'
'Well, I do.'
'You do?'