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.

Certainly for many long weeks it seemed as though the boy were labouring
under some demoniacal possession, and Raymond fully believed that such
was indeed the case. Often it seemed as though no power could restrain
him from at least the attempt to return to the tyrant whom he believed
to be summoning him back. Possibly much of the strange malady from which
he was suffering might be due to physical causes -- overstrained nerves,
and even an unconscious and morbid craving after that very hypnotic
condition (as it would now be termed) which had really reduced him to
his present pitiable state; but to Raymond it appeared to proceed