A deep flush spread over the Marquis’ dark features. Without moving a muscle, and looking straight before him, he replied somewhat haughtily: “I have appreciated your silence, and honoured you for it, though I acknowledge the right by which you have thought to break it. You think my lack of orthodoxy will sit ill upon the shoulders of one who presumes to lead your flock?” The priest vouchsafed no reply. Presently Gilbert turned round. “Forgive me,” he said in a softer tone. “I know that I am no fit leader for them. I may try to deceive them, but it will not be for long. There is no Château-Foix for me to go to at Easter now.” “Why not remove for ever the need to go away at Easter?” asked his companion. “You are suggesting, I suppose, that, for the sake of the peasants, I should go to my Easter duties as though, for one in my position, such a course would not be a sacrilege? I have been thinking over the matter myself, and, if you consider it absolutely necessary, I am willing to sacrifice my self-respect to their ideals. Will that do?” “That was the last thing which I meant to suggest,” replied the priest very gravely. “I meant what I said, that I want to know why you cannot make a genuine submission, and be received back into communion.” The Marquis leant back in his chair, a tiny mocking smile about his lips. “Do you really want a list of my intellectual stumbling-blocks, Father? I am afraid that they are too many to be demolished between now and midnight—or even before Easter.” Again the priest put by the gibe. “My son,” he said, “I have no wish to belittle any man’s intellectual difficulties, but the time is past for argument. You know, we both know, that in a world where we cannot have intellectual certainty for many of the truths which we, nevertheless, hold with unshakable conviction, such difficulties are not the real barrier. . . . Gilbert, we shall soon be face to face with the realities of life and death. We may both of us, for aught we know, be dying men. By all that I hold sacred I conjure you to look into your own soul, lest, too late, you find in yourself the obstacle to faith.” “What do you mean?” asked the young man curtly. “I mean,” continued M. des Graves, and his voice was cold, “that I believe your own hardness of heart to have been the cause of your lukewarmness all these years. I mean that you cannot now make your submission to the Church because submission is a mere name to you. Only once in your life have you known what it is to surrender your own wishes; you have never known what it is to take the second place—except for your own convenience or when you had no choice.” The Marquis settled himself again in his chair, an almost amused expression playing about his mouth, but when he spoke his voice sounded a long way off. “You are fluent to-night, mon père,” he said. “Pray go on! Will you not illustrate my hardness of heart, my—what am I to call it?—my overbearing nature?”