I was back in the small bedroom, with my hot forehead against the cold
glass of the window, looking out yet seeing nothing, when somebody
knocked at the door, softly almost timidly. It was Father Dan, and the
sight of his dear face, broken up with emotion, was the same to me as
the last plank of a foundering ship to a sailor drowning at sea.
My heart was so full that, though I knew I ought not, I threw my arms
about his neck and burst into a flood of tears. The good old priest did
not put me away. He smoothed my drooping head and patted my shoulders
and in his sweet and simple way he tried to comfort me.
"Don't cry! Don't worry! It will be all right in the end, my child."
There was something almost grotesque in his appearance. Under his soft
clerical outdoor hat he was wearing his faded old cassock, as if he had
come away hurriedly at a sudden call. I could see what had happened--my
family had sent him to reprove me and remonstrate with me.
He sat on a chair by my bed and I knelt on the floor at his feet, just
as my mother used to do when I was a child and she was making her
confession.
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