"And they have made him give up his art?"

"For a time--yes--perhaps altogether. Of course it has been his great
renunciation. His superiors thought it necessary to cut him off from it
entirely. And no doubt during the novitiate he suffered a great deal. It
has been like any other starved faculty."

The girl's instincts rose in revolt. She cried out against such waste,
such mutilation. The Catholic tried to appease her; but in another
language. He bade her remember the Jesuit motto. "A Jesuit is like any
other soldier--he puts himself under orders for a purpose."

"And God is to be glorified by the crashing out of all He took the
trouble to give you!"

"You must take the means to the end," said Helbeck steadily. "The Jesuit
must yield his will--otherwise the Society need not exist. In Williams's
case, so long as he had a fascinating and absorbing pursuit, how could he
give himself up to his superiors? Besides"--his grave face stiffened--"in
his case there were peculiar difficulties. His art had become a
temptation. He wished to protect himself from it."

Laura's curiosity was roused; but Helbeck gently put her questions aside,
and at last she said in a flash of something like passion that she
wondered which the young man had felt most--the trampling on his art, or
the forsaking his mother.

Helbeck looked at her with sudden animation.

"I knew you had heard that story. Dear--he did not forsake his mother! He