He continued the train of thought another day, or rather the course of his argument; for on the thought itself his mind seemed ever to be working. “My spring is gone,” he said, “and I have no summer. Nay, I have had no spring; it was a day, not a season. It came, and it went; where am I now? Can spring ever return? I wish to begin again in right earnest.”

“Thank God, my son, for this great mercy,” said Cæcilius, “that, though you have relaxed, you have never severed yourself from the peace of the Church, you have not denied your God.”

Agellius sighed bitterly. “O my father,” he said, “ ‘Erravi, sicut ovis quæ periit.’ I have been very near denying Him, at least by outward act. You do not know me; you cannot know what has come on me lately. And I dare not look back on it, my heart is so weak. My father, how am I to repent of what is past, when I dare not think of it? To think of it is to renew the sin.”

“‘Puer meus, noli timere,’ ” answered the priest; “ ‘si transieris per ignem, odor ejus non erit in te.’ In penance, the grace of God carries you without harm through thoughts and words which would harm you apart from it.”

“Ah, penance!” said Agellius; “I recollect the catechism. What is it, father? a new grace, I know; a plank after baptism. May I have it?”

“You are not strong enough yet to think of these things, Agellius,” answered Cæcilius. “Please God, you shall get well. Then you shall review all your life, and bring it out in order before Him; and He, through me, will wipe away all that has been amiss. Praise Him who has spared you for this.”

It was too much for the patient in his weak state; he could but shed happy tears.

Another day he had sat up in bed. He looked at his hands, from which the skin was peeling; he felt his lips, and it was with them the same; and his hair seemed coming off also. He smiled and said, “Renovabitur, ut aquila, juventus mea.”

Cæcilius responded, as before, with sacred words which were new to Agellius: “ ‘Qui sperant in Domino mutabunt fortitudinem; assument pennas, sicut aquilæ,’ ‘Sursum corda!’ you must soar, Agellius.”