The priest listened sympathetically, and when she paused, he asked, "Is he home now?"
"He is, your Reverence."
"Well, I'll go over and see him."
He showed her to the door, told her to say nothing to her husband, and promised he would be over inside an hour. Some thirty or forty minutes later he was poking his way up the dingy and dirty stairs to the Daly flat. Bill was out. No doubt the home had few attractions for him. Mr. Daly had been pretty badly shaken up by the encounter with his son, and sat fairly sobered on the edge of the bed. The priest entered, made a sign to Mrs. Daly to withdraw, and crossing the room, sat down alongside Daly.
"Well, Michael," he began, "I have come over to see you because I know you need a friend. You know I married you, Michael, and baptized Willie. You were a fine man then, none better, and you and the Missus were very proud of the baby. Well, Michael, you have got clean off the track—and it does not pay, does it, Michael? You had your nice little home and a tender wife, and a boy you were proud of. And all that is gone now, Michael. And pretty soon you'll be gone, too. It does not pay, does it? For the bit of pleasure you get from the liquor, see the price you have paid. It was not the ten cents nor the quarter you put over the bar, but it is this ruined home, Michael Daly. It is a slave and a sloven you have made of your wife, and it is driving the boy to the police, you are doing. Now, in God's Name, Michael, stop it. It is not too late. I will help you, and the wife will help you and Willie will help you. I know you had a fight with him just now, but that is past. It was the liquor did it. Tell me, Michael, you will be a man and cut the stuff out?"
Tears were forming in the man's eyes as the priest looked at his upturned face.
"I'm a beast and no man," he moaned, "I'm down and out. I'm a curse to myself and my own. I'm not worth your bothering about me. Let me alone. Let Mike Daly go his way, he's done for. The devil of whisky has got him and he'll get him for good some day."
"Mike Daly," said the priest firmly, "you are down, God knows, but you are not out. And you are not going to be."
"That's all very well. It's that easy to say, but you don't know the grip that this devil has on me. I've tried and tried and tried, only to fall back again into the gutter. I tell you it's all up with me."
"If it is up with you, it is because you want it to be so," said the priest. "But I tell you, Mike Daly, you are on the brink of hell and the only thing that keeps you from falling into it, is the slender barrier of life. Do you realize that you may be called out of life to judgment any moment without warning? My God! man, where is your faith? If you break the law of the government, you know what would happen! And is not God's law more sacred? Do you suppose you can trifle with the Almighty? Because God does not punish you on the spot, do you think you can ignore Him?"