"Did I send for him? I have a faint idea I did ... a sort of half dream that the dad came to me and told me to see the Father," he answered.
"Will you see him?" she asked.
"Give me something to pull me together first. I am in a mortal dread," he whispered.
"Would you rather wait?" she asked.
"No; it has to be gone through. Just a mouthful of nourishment; then send him in!"
In the quiet of the sick room priest and penitent conferred together in whispers; Desmond O'Connor pouring the story of his fall and the subsequent history resulting from it into the good Father's kindly ears. And when it was completed there was a great joy in the two hearts and a peace in Desmond's that had not been there for many years.
"You are tired, my son," said Father Healy kindly.
"Tired, but glad, Father. I have come out of the ocean of darkness and doubt into the old harbour of peace and certainty."
A few minutes after Father Healy had left him he was again sleeping as peacefully as a child. The nurse, looking into his thin, pale face, where black lines encircled the eyes, found a gentle smile on it.