“Trust not in me, nor in any Saint however holy.  In the Name of the Blessed Jesus alone put thy faith.  Speak the prayer His lips have taught, and then sleep, and fear nothing.”

With hands locked together, and a wonderful look of rest upon his face, Roger repeated after Raymond the long-unused Paternoster which he had never dared to speak beneath the unhallowed roof of his master at Basildene.  With the old sense of restful confidence in prayer came at once the old untroubled sleep of the little child; and when Raymond at last looked up from his own devotions at the bedside, it was to see that Roger had fallen into the tranquil slumber that is the truest restorer of health, and that Father Paul was standing on the opposite side of the bed, regarding him with a very gentle yet a very penetrating and authoritative gaze.  He bent his head once more as if to demand a blessing, and the Father laid a hand upon his head, and said, in grave, full tones: 

“Peace be with thee, my son.”

That was all.  There was no comment upon what had passed; and after partaking of a simple meal, Raymond was advised to retire to rest himself after his long night’s ride, and glad enough was he of the sleep that speedily came to him.

All the next day he was occupied with Gaston, who had many charges to undertake for John; and only when his brother had gone was he free to take up his place at John’s bedside, and be once again his nurse, companion, and fellow student.

Roger still occupied the bed in the same room where he had first been laid.  A low fever of a nature little understood had fastened upon him, and he still fell frequently into those strange unnatural trances which were looked upon by the brothers of the order as due to purely satanic agency.  What Father Paul thought about them none ever knew, and none dared to ask.

Father Paul was a man who had lived in the world till past the meridian of life.  He was reported to have travelled much, to have seen many lands and many things, and to have been in his youth a reckless and evil liver.  Some even believed him to have committed some great crime; but none rightly knew his history, and his present sanctity and power and holiness were never doubted.  A single look into that stern, worn, powerful face, with the coal-black eyes gleaming in their deep sockets, was enough to convince the onlooker that the man was intensely, even terribly in earnest.  His was the leading spirit in that small and austere community, and he began at once to exercise a strong influence upon each of the three youths so unexpectedly thrown across his path.

This influence was the greatest at first over Raymond, in whom he appeared to take an almost paternal interest; and the strange warfare that they waged together over the mental malady of the unhappy Roger drew them still closer together.