“I believed that you had good reasons, Father—­and that was enough for me.”

“Thank you—­you do me justice—­it was in your best interests that I acted.  There are men of phlegmatic temperament, over whom the wise monotony of discipline at The Retreat exercises a wholesome influence—­I mean an influence which may be prolonged with advantage.  You are not one of those persons.  Protracted seclusion and monotony of life are morally and mentally unprofitable to a man of your ardent disposition.  I abstained from mentioning these reasons, at the time, out of a feeling of regard for our excellent resident director, who believes unreservedly in the institution over which he presides.  Very good!  The Retreat has done all that it could usefully do in your case.  We must think next of how to 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.”