e suddenly from his chair, and with an effort that seemed
to show he was struggling for the mastery over his own emotions, said,
'Is it your own choice to be a priest, Gerald?'

'No; far from it. I 'd rather be a herd on the Campagna! You surely know
little of the life of the convent, Signor Conte, or you had not asked me
that question.'

Far from taking offence at the boy's boldness, the Prince smiled
good-naturedly at the energy of his reply.

'Is it the stillness, the seclusion that you dislike?' asked he,
evidently wanting the youth to speak of himself and of his temperament.

'No, it is not that,' said Gerald thoughtfully. 'The quiet, peaceful
hours, when we are left to what they call meditation, are the best of
it. Then one is free to range where he will, in fancy. I 've had as many
adventures, thus, as any fortune-seeker of the Arabian Nights. What
lands have I not visited! what bold things have I not achieved! ay, and
day after day, taken up the same dream where I had left it last,
carrying on its fortunes, till the actual work of life seemed the
illusion, and this, the dream-world, the true one.'

'So that, after all, this same existence has its pleasures, Gerald?'

'The pleasures are in forgetting it! ignoring that your whole life is a
falsehood! They make me kneel at confession to tell my thoughts, while
well I know that, for the least blamable of them, I shall be scourged.
They oblige me to say that I hate everything that gives a charm to life,
and cherish as blessings all that can darken and sadden it. Well,
I swear the lie, and they are satisfied! And why are they
satisfied?--because out of this corrupt heart, debased by years of
treachery and falsehood, they have created the being that they want to
serve them.'

'What has led you to think thus hardly of the priesthood?'

'One of themselves, Signor Conte. He told me all that I have repeated
to you now, and he counselled me, if I had a friend--one friend on
earth--to beseech him to rescue me ere it was too late, ere I was like
him.'

'And he--what became of him?'

'He died, as all die who offend the Order, of a wasting fever. His hair
was white as snow, though he was under thirty, and his coffin was light
as a child's. Look here, Signor Conte,' cried he, as a smile of half
incredulity, half pity, curled the Prince's lip, 'look here. You are a
great man and a rich: you never knew what it was in life to suffer any,
the commonest of those privation