There were her sins against faith. She had striven to undermine her belief in God. She had read Darwin and Huxley for this purpose, and not in the least to obtain knowledge. As Monsignor has said, “When a Catholic loses his faith, it is because he desires to lead a loose life,” and she hardly dared to look into her soul, knowing that she would find confirmation of this opinion. She had not been to Mass, because at the Elevation she believed in spite of herself; so she had been as insincere in her unfaith as in her faith. Then there were the sins of the flesh, and their number and their blackness terrified her. There were sins that she strove to put out of her mind at once, sins she was even ashamed to think of; and the thought of confessing them struck her down, and once more it seemed tha
