cursed, and defied?

He shuddered at his blasphemies. He tried to pray, but found he could
only utter prayers, and could not pray.

"I am doomed eternally!" he cried. "Doomed, doomed!" Then rose the
voices of the choir chanting a full service. Among them was one that
seemed to hover above the others--a sweet boy's voice, full, pure,
angelic.

He closed his eyes and listened. The days of his own boyhood flowed back
upon him.

"Ay," he sighed, "the Church is peace of mind. Till I left her bosom I
ne'er knew sorrow, nor sin."

And the poor torn, worn creature wept; and soon was at the knees of a
kind old friar, confessing his every sin with sighs and groans of
penitence.

And, lo! Gerard could pray now, and he prayed with all his heart.

He turned with terror and aversion from the world, and begged
passionately to remain in the convent. To him, convent nurtured, it was
like a bird returning wounded, wearied, to its gentle nest.

He passed his novitiate in prayer and mortification and pious reading
and meditation.

And Gerard, carried from the Tiber into that convent a suicide, now