r mother..." He broke off. "It is decided that you
go to him at once, to take up your study of the humanities under his
tutelage, and that you abide with him until you are of an age for
ordination, which your mother hopes will be very soon. Indeed, it is
her wish that you should enter the subdeaconate in the autumn, and your
novitiate next year, to fit you for the habit of St. Augustine."

He fell silent, adding no comment of any sort, as if he waited to hear
what of my own accord I might have to urge. But my mind was incapable
of travelling beyond the fact that I was to go out into the world
to-morrow.

The circumstance that I should become a monk was no departure from the
idea to which I had been trained, although explicitly no more than my
mere priesthood had been spoken of. So I lay there without thinking of
any words in which to answer him.

Gervasio considered me steadily, and sighed a little. "Agostino," he
said presently, "you are upon the eve of taking a great step, a step
whose import you may never fully have considered. I have been your
tutor, and your rearing has been my charge. That charge I have
faithfully carried out as was ordained me, but not as I would have
carried it out had I been free to follow my heart and my conscience in
the matter.

"The idea of your ultimate priesthood has been so fostered in your mind
that you may well have come to believe that to be a priest is your own
inherent desire. I would have you consider it well now that the time
approaches for a step which is irrevocable."

His words and his manner startled me alike.

"How?" I cried. "Do you say that it might be better if I did not seek
ordination? What better can the world offer than the priesthood? Have
you not, yourself, taught me that it is man's noblest calling?"

"To be a good priest, fulfilling all the teachings of the Master,
becoming in your turn His mouthpiece, living a life of self-abnegation,
of self-sacrifice and purity," he answered slowly, "that is the noblest
thing a man can be. But to be a bad priest--there are other ways of
being damned less hurtful to the Church."

"To be a bad priest?" quoth I. "Is it possible to be a bad priest?"

"It is not only possible, my son, but in these days it is very frequent.
Many men, Agostino, enter the Church out of motives of self-seeking.
Through such as these Rome has come to be spoken of as the Necropolis
of the Living. Others, Agostino--and these are men most worthy of