employ that mental activity which, rightly developed, is one of
the most valuable qualities that you possess. Let me ask, first, if you
have in some degree recovered your tranquillity?"

"I feel like a different man, Father Benwell."

"That's right! And your nervous sufferings--I don't ask what they are; I
only want to know if you experience a sense of relief?"

"A most welcome sense of relief," Romayne answered, with a revival of
the enthusiasm of other days. "The complete change in all my thoughts
and convictions which I owe to you--"

"And to dear Penrose," Father Benwell interposed, with the prompt sense
of justice which no man could more becomingly assume. "We must not
forget Arthur."

"Forget him?" Romayne repeated. "Not a day passes without my thinking
of him. It is one of the happy results of the change in me that my mind
does not dwell bitterly on the loss of him now. I think of Penrose
with admiration, as of one whose glorious life, with all its dangers, I
should like to share!"

He spoke with a rising color and brightening eyes. Already, the
absorbent capacity of the Roman Church had drawn to itself that
sympathetic side of his character which was also one of its strongest
sides. Already, his love for Penrose--hitherto inspired by the virtues
of the man--had narrowed its range to sympathy with the trials and
privileges of the priest. Truly and deeply, indeed, had the physician
consulted, in bygone days, reasoned on Romayne's case! That "occurrence
of some new and absorbing influence in his life," of which the doctor
had spoken--that "working of some complete change in his habits of
thought"--had found its way to him at last, after the wife's simple
devotion had failed, through the subtler ministrations of the priest.

Some men, having Father Benwell's object in view, would have taken
instant advantage of the opening offered to them by Romayne's unguarded
enthusiasm. The illustrious Jesuit held fast by the wise maxim which
forbade him to do anything in a hurry.

"No," he said, "your life must not be the life of our dear friend. The
service on which the Church employs Penrose is not the fit service for
you. You have other claims on us."

Romayne looked at his spiritual adviser with a momentary change of
expression--a relapse into the ironical bitterness of the past time.

"Have you forgotten that I am, and can be, only a layman?" he asked.
"What claims can I have, except the common claim of all faith