"And will you be taking the Bishop's black draught?" asked Molly Healy.
"I have not decided whether I shall swallow it or throw it away," he answered evasively.
But Molly Healy realised that Desmond O'Connor had decided. To her, this represented the destruction of an ideal she had never hoped to realise; but, as she wiped a few tears from her eyes that evening she remarked to herself:
"Life is made up of not getting what you want, Molly Healy. It is better Desmond should become a priest than die a scallywag—and it will keep him out of the way of that Sylvia Custance. God knows what is best for every one of us."
CHAPTER XXII.
A LINK BROKEN.
Denis Quirk was back in Melbourne, in the "Bachelors' Flat," and working relentlessly at the "Freelance." That intrepid little weekly had shouldered its way into a prominent position in the literary world. It stood for independence of thought, avoiding the humdrum of the beaten track, offering its own ideas to the public, careless of passing crazes and passions.