"It is good to have such faith at a time like this," the priest said. He looked over at Halligan, as if expecting a response. Halligan didn't say anything, though. "He speaks highly of you, too," Cheverus said. "He says you're like a brother to him."

Halligan nodded. "Dom's like a brother to me, too."

"You have no family in America, James?"

"No. No family a'tall."

"Is there someone you would want me to contact back home?"

He thought about it for a moment. Who would care to learn of his death? Of all the men he'd known or worked with, shared the road or a campfire with, fought with during those few desperate months during the Uprising, was there not even a single soul that would tip a pint in his memory? Or, of all the women he'd slept with, was there not even one who would shed a tear and recall Jamy Halligan with fondness or affection? Finally, he shook his head.

"I was an orphan, Father. After my mother died, I didn't have any folks."

"Who raised you?"

"The Franciscans took me in."

"Ah. So that's where you learned to read and write?"

"Yes, Father."

"Why did you leave Ireland?"

Halligan shrugged. He didn't see the point in telling this man his reasons. Yes, he was a priest and used to hearing the maggoty underbelly of a person's life. But Halligan's life was nobody's business but his own. Besides, the man wouldn't understand. How could he possibly know what it was to feel what he'd felt for a woman like Bridie. The touch of her skin, the smell and taste of her. The fact that they'd been lovers, that what they had done the Church considered a sin. He was a priest. And Halligan didn't want him giving him a lecture, telling him that it had been wrong, and not in the way that Halligan knew it to be wrong. The priest would want him to ask for forgiveness and he'd tell him to say ten Hail Marys and five Our Fathers. As if that would do any bloody good at all. So instead he replied, "Same as everybody, I suppose. Looking for a better life here," he said, a soft laugh escaping from him. The priest nodded sympathetically, as if he understood exactly why men left one place and came to another. Halligan looked down at the other's hands. They lay palm up on his lap, resting on the white surplice. Though small and delicately shaped, his hands were callused, the nails cracked and dirty, the fingers strangely gnarled for someone of his profession. He was a man, thought Halligan, who'd grown up in ease, who hadn't been accustomed to hard work, but who came to know it only later in life and then as a kind of penance.

"How long has yourself been here, Father?" Halligan asked.

"Ten years," he said.

Halligan saw the little priest get this faraway look in his brown eyes. He noticed now the small wrinkles around the mouth and the crow's feet at the corners of his eyes. They gave his childlike features an oddly haggard look. After a while he glanced over at Halligan and asked, "Are you quite certain there's no one you would wish me to write to?"

Again he shook his head.

"There must be somebody. A friend from back home. Somebody you knew at the orphanage perhaps."

"Nobody," he said again. He was a stubborn one, this priest. "There was a couple of lads I worked with, but I wouldn't know where they'd be now. I kind of moved around a lot."

"Is there nothing I can do for you?" the priest asked again.

"No, I don't think so, Father."

"I see," the priest said, his shoulders sagging in disappointment. "Perhaps then we ought to get started."

Halligan frowned. "Started, Father?"

"Your confession, James."

"Didn't Dom tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

"Begging your pardon, Father, but I've not made confession in years."

"All the more reason we should begin," he said, smiling, as if he'd made a joke.

"That's not what I meant. The truth is, I'm not much on church and all that. I've not been to Mass since I was a boy."

"But I thought... the letter spoke of confession?" "Ah, that was Dominic's idea. I just wrote it for him. It's not that I'm not grateful for your coming. I am."

"You are Catholic, aren't you?"

"I was baptized Catholic. Or so they tell me."

"Then you are still a Catholic. The Franciscans must have taught you your catechism. The importance of confession."

"That they did," he said, nodding. "They tried to anyway. I just never took to it is all."

"Do you believe in God's love?"

Halligan shook his head. "I don't think He's all that interested in me to tell you the truth."

"But He is, James. He loves you very much."

"You don't know anything about me, Father. I mean the sort of person I am. Whether God could love me or not."

"I don't need to. He loves all His children. And His love means He forgives them their sins."

"I don't know much about forgiveness, but to my way of thinking there are some things beyond forgiveness."

"There is nothing beyond His compassion, my son. Nothing a man can do. You've committed sins, have you not, James?"

"Sure. What man hasn't?"

"Mortal sins. You know what they are?"

"Of course, Father," he said, an edge slipping into his voice. All this talk of sins and forgiveness only annoyed him. They didn't change a thing. Not a bloody thing.

"Then surely, you would want God's mercy."

"Seems kind of late for that." Then he added, "Sort of like closing the barn door after the cow is already out."

"It's never too late, James. No matter what you did before, no matter how terrible the offense, He would forgive you. God gave His only son for our sins, so that we may have eternal life. All you have to do is open your heart to His grace."

He'd heard all this before. He could remember Brother Padraig talking about God's grace. About mercy. About redemption. How God loved each one of us, even the worst man in the world. It was the same old line.

He hadn't bought it then, and he didn't buy it now. We were born alone and we died alone, and nothing we did in between would change that fact. And when your time was up, that was it. Whether we were good or bad, whether we repented our sins or not, we all of us ended up pretty much in the same sinking boat.

"I mean no disrespect Father, but you're wasting your time with me."

"Think of your immortal soul, James," the man exclaimed, his brown eyes burning with a fierce intensity. "While there is still time. You don't have to go to your grave with that terrible black mark upon it."

"Black mark, you say?"

"What you did. You can be forgiven. You can, James. It's never too late. Never."

The small priest was staring at him, his features drawn tight as a drum over the delicate bones of his face. He was sweating profusely, as if he had a fever. The sweat beaded on his forehead and slid down over his flushed cheeks. His dark eyes shone with the glow of some great expectation, or some great fear. Halligan could no longer look at him, so he closed his eyes. An image of Bridie came to him. She was standing there in the moonlight, up on Mount Eagle. Her dark eyes full of that same expectation, as he told her he would meet her in Cobh, and they would sail for America together. He wondered about the nature of forgiveness. Had she known he was lying even then, that he would betray her? Had she loved him enough to forgive him? No, he didn't think so. No one loved that much. Not even God could love another that much.

He opened his eyes but did not look over at the priest. He hung his head in his hands, staring down at the floor. "I think it is too late, Father. For me anyway."

"Not if you confess," Cheverus continued. "The Lord will forgive anything you've done. Anything at all. You need only ask Him and show true repentance for your sins."

"What I've done, nobody can forgive me for."

"You're wrong, James. His love is infinite. It depends only on your asking Him for it."

He found the earlier rage returning. Now that burning in his chest was anger. It was like a smoldering piece of turf that had been fanned and suddenly burst into flame.

"I can only hope there's not a hell," he said, cruelly, as if trying to punish the priest for interfering. "Because if there is, I've got a first-class ticket for it, bought and paid for."

"No, James. You can be saved. Come," he said, extending his hand to him as he got down on his knees. "Let us pray together."

"No, Father," he said firmly, the anger rising up into his throat like bile. He couldn't even say why. He knew the priest was only trying to help him. But he didn't want his help. Or maybe he believed he was so far beyond help that the offer of it now merely teased him, like a thirsty man teased by the false lure of a mirage.

"James, please. Let me be of help to you."

"I said no. Now just leave it be, Father."

"There is nothing you could've done that He won't forgive. Even this."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"He'll forgive anything. He can forgive this, too. Even this. Come. Pray with me, James." The priest tried to take hold of his hand, but he pulled violently away.

"No!" he cried. "I don't want any of your damn prayers! D'ye understand?"

"But how can I help you, my son?"

"You can't, Father. That's what I've been trying to tell you. I know you mean well. Dom says you're a decent man, and I believe him. But there's nothing you can say or do that's going to help me. So please, just leave me be."

Halligan fell silent. He sat there for a moment thinking about something the priest said. Even this? What did he mean by that? He looked over at Cheverus. Slowly, it dawned on him. He saw in the priest's eyes what he was really asking him.

"You're of a mind that we did it?" Halligan asked.

"It's not too late to receive God's mercy, my son."

"You do, don't you, Father? You think we killed that fellow." "James, I beg of you. For the sake of your soul. Reconsider what you're doing."

"But we didn't do it, Father. We didn't."

"Confess and seek His forgiveness. Before it is too late."

"For God's sakes, Father, listen to what I'm telling you," Halligan cried. "We didn't kill the man. I swear we didn't."

The priest looked hard at him, as if for the first time. He squinted, his brown eyes those of a man looking into a sun that had just emerged from behind the clouds. The sudden light was almost too bright for him.

"But what of the money?" Cheverus asked. "I'm told they found the man's money on you."

Halligan wagged his head. He exhaled, trying to calm this growing anger in him.

"It was his, yes. That we did lie about," Halligan replied. "When they caught us and said we were being charged with murder, we didn't know what else to do. So we lied and said it was ours. But the truth was we found it lying on the ground, down near the river. Dom picked it up."

"You found it?"

"Aye."

"You didn't steal it?"

"No, we didn't steal it," he snapped. "His purse was lying there just off the road, and we picked it up. I don't know how it came to be there. Maybe in the fight it got thrown there. I can't say. We just picked it up. If we're guilty of anything, that'd be it. Nothing more than that. We never even met the man. Didn't know he was killed until the posse arrested us."

"I thought. . ."

"We told you in the letter we were innocent."

"But it spoke of your desire for salvation. I thought that's why you wanted me to come. So you could confess and receive absolution."

"Dom wanted to make confession. Not to this though. He's not a murderer. And neither am I. We didn't do this. I swear to you, Father."

Cheverus stared wide-eyed at him, his lips parted. His brought a hand up to his mouth. For several seconds he just stared at Halligan. "James," he said after a while, "you are telling me the truth," but it came out sounding like a question.

"Yes, Father. Why on earth would we lie now?" Halligan pleaded. "It doesn't matter so much to me whether you believe us or not. But it's important to Dom."

The priest shook his head. He took a breath, and when he exhaled, his shoulders sagged.

"You are telling the truth, aren't you?"

"I don't know who killed that fellow or why, or how his purse came to be lying there. I don't know any of that. All I know is we're innocent."

The priest closed his eyes. "Cher Dieu dans le del!" he said, as he folded his hands in prayer. He didn't say anything for several seconds. Finally, just above a whisper, he offered, "Forgive me, James. I have made a terrible mistake."

The little priest looked so pathetic, confused and lost, as if he had just learned there was no heaven after all. Halligan couldn't help feeling sorry for him. The anger had drained from him as quickly as it had come. He reached out and touched Cheverus's shoulder. "It's all right, Father," he offered at last.

"No, it's not all right. I thought. ! ."

"There's a whole town out there thinks the same thing."

"But I should have had more faith in you."

"You hardly know me, Father. For all you know, I did do what they say."