Rev. dear Father Dan:—How has all this miserable business occurred? Well, to our minds, you alone are culpable and responsible. We must seem to Letheby to be utter caitiffs and cowards, to allow matters to come to such a horrible crisis, especially in the case of a sensitive fellow like him. But up to the date of that horrible exposure in Stubbs', we had no idea there were complications with those factory people—nothing, in fact, beyond the responsibilities of that unhappy boat. Now, why didn't you let us know? You may not be aware that the evening of the disaster I made a solemn engagement to stand by him to the end; and now all this must seem the merest braggadocio. And yet, the thing was a trifle. Would you tell Letheby now, that it will be all right in a few days, and to cheer up; no harm done, beyond a temporary humiliation! But we'll never dine with you again, and we shall, one and all, brave the Episcopal anger by refusing to be your curates when Letheby is promoted.
Yours, etc.,
Charles L. Duff, C. C.
"He's very kind, very kind, indeed," said Father Letheby, meditatively; "but I cannot see how he is going to make it all right in a few days."
"It wouldn't surprise me much," I replied, "if that good young fellow had already put a sop in those calves' mouths over there at Kilkeel."
"Impossible!" he cried.
"Well, time will tell."
I called down to see Alice and talk over things. It is wonderful what a clairvoyante she has become. She sees everything as in a magic mirror.
"I think the Holy Souls will come to his relief," she said, in a cool, calm way. "He has, I think, a great devotion to the Holy Souls. He told me once, when we were talking about holy things, that he makes a memento in every Mass of the most neglected and abandoned priest in purgatory; but, sure, priests don't go to purgatory, Father Dan, do they?"
"Well, my dear, I cannot answer you in general terms; but there's one that will be certainly there before many years; and unless you and Father Letheby and Bittra pull him out by your prayers, I'm afraid—But continue what you were saying."
"He makes a memento, he said, for the most abandoned priest, and for the soul that is next to be released. And whenever he has not a special intention, he always gives his Mass to our Blessed Lady for that soul. Now, I think, that's very nice. Just imagine that poor soul waiting inside the big barred gates, and the angel probably her warder for many years, outside. They don't exchange a word. They are only waiting, waiting. Far within are the myriads of Holy Souls, praying, suffering, loving, hoping. There is a noise as of a million birds, fluttering their wings above the sea. But here at the gate is silence, silence. She dares not ask: When?—- because the angel does not know. Now and again he looks at her and smiles, and she is praying softly to herself. Suddenly there is a great light in the darkness overhead, and then there is a dawn on the night of purgatory; for a great spirit is coming down swiftly, swiftly, on wings of light, until he reaches the prison-house. Then he hands the warder-angel a letter from the Queen of Heaven; and in a moment, back swing the gates, and in plunges the guardian angel, and wraps up that expectant soul in his strong wings, and up, up, up, through starry night and sunny day they go, until they come into the singing heavens; and up along the great avenues of smiling angels, until at last the angel lays down that soul gently at the feet of Mary. And all this was done by a quiet priest in a remote, whitewashed chapel, here by the Atlantic, and there was no one with him but the little boy who rang the bell."