“I can think of nothing yet; my mind is a blank,” Romayne confessed sadly.  “I don’t know where I shall go.”

“I know where you ought to go—­and where you will go,” said Father Benwell, emphatically.

“Where?”

“To Rome.”

Romayne understood the true meaning of that brief reply.  A vague sense of dismay began to rise in his mind.  While he was still tortured by doubt, it seemed as if Father Benwell had, by some inscrutable process of prevision, planned out his future beforehand.  Had the priest foreseen events?

No—­he had only foreseen possibilities, on the day when it first occurred to him that Romayne’s marriage was assailable, before the court of Romayne’s conscience, from the Roman Catholic point of view.  By this means, the misfortune of Romayne’s marriage having preceded his conversion might be averted; and the one certain obstacle in the way of any change of purpose on his part—­the obstacle of the priesthood—­might still be set up, by the voluntary separation of the husband from the wife.  Thus far the Jesuit had modestly described himself to his reverend colleagues, as regarding his position toward Romayne in a new light.  His next letter might boldly explain to them what he had really meant.  The triumph was won.  Not a word more passed between his guest and himself that morning.

Before post-time, on the same day, Father Benwell wrote his last report to the Secretary of the Society of Jesus, in these lines: 

“Romayne is free from the domestic ties that bound him.  He leaves it to me to restore Vange Abbey to the Church; and he acknowledges a vocation for the priesthood.  Expect us at Rome in a fortnight’s time.”

AFTER THE STORY.

EXTRACTS FROM BERNARD WINTERFIELD’S DIARY.

I.

WINTERFIELD DEFENDS HIMSELF.

Beaupark House, June 17th, 18—.

You and I, Cousin Beeminster, seldom meet.  But I occasionally hear of you, from friends acquainted with both of us.

I have heard of you last at Sir Philip’s rent-day dinner a week since.  My name happened to be mentioned by one of the gentlemen present, a guest like yourself.  You took up the subject of your own free will, and spoke of me in these terms: 

“I am sorry to say it of the existing head of the family—­but Bernard is really unfit for the position which he holds.  He has, to say the least of it, compromised himself and his relatives on more than one occasion.  He began as a young man by marrying a circus-rider.  He got into some other scrape, after that, which he has contrived to keep a secret from us.  We only know how disgraceful it must have been by the results—­he was a voluntary exile from England for more than a year.  And now, to complete the list, he has mixed himself up in that miserable and revolting business of Lewis Romayne and his wife.”

If any other person had spoken of me in this manner, I should have set him down as a mischievous idiot—­to be kicked perhaps, but not to be noticed in any other way.