long anticipated day dawned her
eyes swam in tears of hallowed joy. The Archbishop and his grim
secretary each congratulated the other heartily, and the latter,
breaking into one of his rare smiles, murmured gratefully, "At last!
And our enemies have lost a champion!"

The night before the ordination Jose had begged to occupy a room
alone. The appeal which emanated from his sad face, his thin and
stooping body, his whole drawn and tortured being, would have melted
flint. His request was granted. Throughout the night the boy, on his
knees beside the little bed, wrestled with the emotions which were
tearing his soul. Despondency lay over him like a pall. A vague
presentiment of impending disaster pressed upon him like a millstone.
Ceaselessly he weighed and reviewed the forces which had combined to
drive him into the inconsistent position which he now occupied.
Inconsistent, for his highest ideal had been truth. He was by nature
consecrated to it. He had sought it diligently in the Church, and now
that he was about to become her priest he could not make himself
believe that he had found it. Now, when bound to her altars, he faced
a life of deception, of falsehood, as the champion of a faith which he
could not unreservedly embrace.

But he had accepted his education from the Church; and would he shrink
from making payment therefor? Yet, on the other hand, must he
sacrifice honor--yea, his whole future--to the payment of a debt
forced upon him before he had reached the age of reason? The oath of
ordination, the priest's oath, echoed in his throbbing ears like a
soul-sentence to eternal doom; while spectral shades of moving priests
and bishops, laying cold and unfeeling hands upon him, sealing him to
endless servitude to superstition and deception, glided to and fro
through the darkness before his straining eyes. Could he receive the
ordination to-morrow? He had promised--but the assumption of its
obligations would brand his shrinking soul with torturing falsehood!
If he sank under doubt and fear, could he still retract? What then of
his mother and his promise to her? What of the Rincon honor and pride?
Living disgrace, or a living lie--which? Sacrifice of self--or mother?
God knew, he had never deliberately countenanced a falsehood--yet,
through circumstances which he did not have the will to control, he
was a living one!

Fair visions of a life untrammeled by creed or religious convention
hovered at times that night be