t convictions!"

The Pontiff's pallid face went dark. The eyes of the other auditors
bulged with astonishment. A dumb spell settled over the room.

"Father, my guilt lies not in having recorded my honest convictions,
nor in the fact that these records fell into the hands of those who
eagerly grasp every opportunity to attack their common enemy, the
Church. It lies rather in my weak resistance to those influences which
in early life combined to force upon me a career to which I was by
temperament and instinct utterly disinclined. It lies in my having
sacrificed myself to the selfish love of my mother and my own
exaggerated sense of family pride. It lies in my still remaining
outwardly a priest of the Catholic faith, when every fiber of my soul
revolts against the hypocrisy!"

"You are a subject of the Church!" the Papal Secretary interrupted.
"You have sworn to her and to the Sovereign Pontiff as loyal and
unquestioning obedience as to the will of God himself!"

Jose turned upon him. "Before my ordination," he cried, "I was a
voluntary subject of the Sovereign of Spain. Did that ceremony render
me an unwilling subject of the Holy Father? Does the ceremony of
ordination constitute the Romanizing of Spain? No, I am not a subject
of Rome, but of my conscience!"

Another dead pause followed, in which for some moments nothing
disturbed the oppressive silence. Jose looked eagerly into the
delicate features of the living Head of the Church. Then, with
decreased ardor, and in a voice tinged with pathos, he continued:

"Father, my mistakes have been only such as are natural to one of
my peculiar character. I came to know, but too late, that my
life-motives, though pure, found not in me the will for their
direction. I became a tool in the hands of those stronger than
myself. For what ultimate purpose, I know not. Of this only am I
certain, that my mother's ambitions, though selfish, were the only
pure motives among those which united to force the order of
priesthood upon me."

"Force!" burst in one of the Cardinal-Bishops. "Do you assume to make
the Holy Father believe that the priesthood can be _forced_ upon a
man? You assumed it willingly, gladly, as was your proper return for
the benefits which the Mother Church had bestowed upon you!"

"In a state of utmost confusion, bordering a mental breakdown, I
assumed it--outwardly," returned the priest sadly, "but my heart never
ceased to reject it. Once ordained, however, I s