In Paris for one short winter with his elder brother Octave, he was much sought after for his rare musical talents, as well as his personal attractiveness, which charmed all with whom he came in contact.  Madame la Marquise was proud of both her sons, but Rene she idolized, and he returned her affection with a devotion rare even in the best of children.

Like a sudden clap of thunder, there came on the gay world of Paris one spring morning the news that Rene Bois-le-Duc had joined the great Dominican order, and had been hurriedly sent off at a moment’s notice on a mission to America.  At first it could not be believed possible; but at length, after a year when he did not return, the fact could not be doubted.  But what was the reason for this sudden step?  Why had he not told his friends?  Why did he leave in this way?  There was a mystery about it, and his former friends were not slow in inventing evil reports about the absent one.  Octave Bois-le-Duc never mentioned his brother, nor was the mystery ever cleared up.

All this, of course, happened many years before my story opens; and though at first Rene Bois-le-Duc found his new life hard, exiled as he was from all his former associates, he had never returned to France.  At times he had been sorely tempted to do so, but he knew that none could replace him in his work at Father Point, and he had grown to love his people—­to be, indeed, a father unto them, mindful both of their spiritual and temporal well-being.

Nor can it be said that his talents were entirely thrown away, for from time to time some highly polished poem or literary critique would find its way from the lonely little house on the banks of the St. Lawrence to a standard French magazine; and old schoolmates of the cure would shrug their shoulders and say, “Oh, here is a capital thing by Rene Bois-le-Duc.  I thought he was dead and buried long ago.”

And he was, indeed, so far as men of his own standing and education were concerned.  Except for an annual visit from his bishop, and occasionally one from a pilot or sea captain, M. Bois le-Duc seldom heard news of the outer world.  On the whole, his life was not an unhappy one, and certainly not idle.  Most of the hours not spent in parish work were occupied in perfecting the education of several of the young men in whom he was interested.  With Noel McAllister he took special pains.  Whether the results were satisfactory in this particular case may be doubted; still he did what he considered best, and left the issue to Providence.

In Marie Gourdon, too, he took a great interest.  Her mother had died when she was scarcely six months old.  Her father had never troubled his dull head about her; and, after she left the convent at Rimouski, she led a very lonely life for so young a girl.