down. Domini leant forward.

"Louarine," she said, reading the name on the bottle. "Won't you have
some?"

"The fact is, madame," began the priest, with hesitation, "this liqueur
comes from the Trappist monastery of El Largani."

"Yes?"

"It was made by a monk and priest to whom the secret of its manufacture
belonged. At his death he was to confide the secret to another whom he
had chosen. But the monks of El Largani will never earn another franc by
Louarine when what they have in stock is exhausted."

"The monk died suddenly?"

"Madame, he ran away from the monastery after being there in the eternal
silence for twenty years, after taking the final vows."

"How horrible!" said Domini. "That man must be in hell now, in the hell
a man can make for himself by his own act."

As she spoke, Androvsky appeared by the tent door. He was looking
frightfully ill, and like a desperate man. When the priest had gone,
Domini told Androvsky about the liqueur and the disappearance of the
Trappist monk. As she spoke, his face grew more ghastly. He stood rigid,
as if with horror.

"Poor, poor man!" she said, as she finished her story.

"You--you pity that man then?" murmured Androvsky.

"Yes," she replied. "I was thinking of the agony he must be enduring if
he is still alive."

Androvsky seemed painfully moved, and almost as if he were on the verge
of some passionate outburst of emotion; and something like a deep voice
far down in the loving heart of Domini said to her, "If you really love,
be fearless. Attack the sorrow which stands like a figure of death
between you and your husband. Drive it away. You have a weapon--faith--
use it!"

At last she summoned all her courage, all her faith, and she forced from
Androvsky the confession of what it was which held him in perpetual
misery, even in freedom, even with her, whom he loved beyond and above
all human beings.

"Domini," he said, "you want to know what it is that makes me unhappy
even in our love--desperately unhappy. It is this. I believe in God, I
love God, I have insulted God. I have tried to forget God, to deny Him,
to put human love higher than love for Him. But always I am haunted by
the thought of God, and that thought makes me despair. Once, when I was
young, I gave myself to God solemnly. I have broken the vows I made! I
gave myself to God as a monk."

"You are the Trappist!" she whispered. "You are the monk from the
monastery of El Largani who disappeared