conceived a high ideal of what life ought to be.

This ideal was fostered by the influence of his instructors at college.
His enthusiastic temperament and ascetic leanings led him to think
seriously of entering holy orders when quite young, but this idea met
with strong opposition from his parents; so, for a time, he abandoned it.

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 Réné 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 Réné 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 Réné 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