And Father Rielle answered quietly:—
"There is no difficulty, my son. The sin, if sin it was, is past, and even if it were not, if it still lingered in you, we would take you in and help and restore you. We refuse no man, no woman; we do not question, we do not talk, we make no guesses, we are not curious. We will take you as we have taken, as our Church has taken, thousands of others—for the present and for the future—caring nothing for the past. We recognize that all men are not alike. Some will still preach, and you were one of these, but you will soon be content to preach no longer; for such as you it is but a weariness of the flesh, a disturber, a tempter. Others will still do parish work, like myself; regular work among the people that does not show, more or less successful, more or less uneventful. Others will pass in behind the high walls of a monastery and lead the ordered life prescribed for them; you are to be one of these and I foresee you gaining in self-restraint, calm, and growing in spiritual insight as you voluntarily forsake all worldly ties and sympathies and disappear from men for ever."
Ringfield moved uneasily. It seemed as if the priest took things too much for granted.
"How can I tell?" he faltered. "It attracts me, it moves before me night and day; the quiet hours told off by bells—are they not?"
"Yes, my brother."
"The cowled men working in the garden, at graves, I have heard. Is it not so?"
"Yes, yes, and at other things," said the priest indulgently.
"The prayers, said kneeling on the cold floors, the precision and solemnity of it all, the absence of all distractions. Oh, there surely I shall find rest unto my soul;—only if I joined, and found I could not stay, if the world again called me!"
Father Rielle closed his eyes and yawned with an indescribable air of mastery and insolence.
"There would always be your oath, my son. Do not forget that."