ray and hope, as my duty is, though he should still remain the devil
to the end. What am I? Nothing. But what the Church has done, the Church
may do. Think of Paul and Augustine, and Constantine!"

"They were classic barbarians to whom religion was but an emotion. This
man has a brain which must be satisfied."

"I must count him as a soul to be saved through that very intelligence,
as well as through the goodness of his daily life, which, in its
charity, shames us all. He gives all he earns to the sick and needy. He
lives on fare as poor as the poorest of our people eat; he gives up his
hours of sleep to nurse the sick. Dauphin might not have lived but for
him. His heart is good, else these things were impossible. He could not
act them."

"But that's just it, Cure. Doesn't he act them? Isn't it a whim? What
more likely than that, tired of the flesh-pots of Egypt, he comes here
to live in the desert--for a sensation? We don't know."

"We do know. The man has had sorrow and the man has had sin. Yes,
believe me, there is none of us that suffers as this man has suffered.
I have had many, many talks with him. Believe me, Maurice, I speak the
truth. My heart bleeds for him. I think I know the thing that drove him
here amongst us. It is a great temptation, which pursues him here--even
here, where his life is so commendable. I have seen him fighting it. I
have seen his torture, the piteous, ignoble yielding, and the struggle,
with more than mortal energy, to be master of himself."

"It is--" the Seigneur said, then paused.

"No, no; do not ask me. He has not confessed to me, Maurice-naturally,
nothing like that. But I know. I know and pity--ah, Maurice, I almost
love. You argue, and reason, but I know this, my friend, that something
was left out of this man when he was made, and it is that thing that
we must find, or he will die among us a ruined soul, and his gravestone
will be the monument of our shame. If he can once trust the Church, if
he can once say, 'Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit,' then his
temptation will vanish, and I shall bring him in--I shall lead him
home."

For an instant the Seigneur looked at him in amazement, for this was a
Cure he had never known.

"Dear Cure, you are not your old self," he said gently.

"I am not myself--yes, that is it, Maurice. I am not the old humdrum
Cure you knew. The whole world is my field now. I have sorrowed for sin,
within the bounds of this little Chaudiere. N