Again the priest ceased speaking. There was a strange thrill of foreboding in his voice, which, however, had never been raised above a monotone. The two men sat side by side, as still as the dead. They gazed vacantly into the golden gates of the west, and each in his own way thought over these things. Assuredly the Angel of Silence hung over that little vessel then, for no sound from earth or sea or sky came to wake those two thinkers from their reverie. At last the Englishman's full, steady tones broke the hush. “This,” he said, “has not been learnt in two days. You must have known it before. If you knew it, why are you what you are? You never have been a real Jesuit, and you never will be.” “I swore to the Mother of God--I am bound....” “By an oath forced upon you!” “No! By an oath I myself begged to take!” This was the bitterest drop in the priest's cup. Everything had been done of his own free will--at his own desire. During eleven years a network of perfidy had been cunningly woven around him, mesh after mesh, day after day. As he grew older, so grew in strength the warp of the net. Thus, in the fulness of time, everything culminated to the one great end in view. Nothing was demanded (for that is an essential rule), everything must be offered freely, to be met by an apparently hesitating acceptance. Constant dropping wears the hardest stone in time. “But,” said Vellacott, “you can surely represent to your Provincial that you are not fitted for the work put before you.” “My friend,” interrupted the priest, “we can represent nothing. We are supposed to have no natural inclinations. All work should be welcome, none too difficult, no task irksome.” “You can volunteer for certain services,” said Vellacott. The priest shrugged his shoulders. “What services?” he asked. The Englishman looked at him for some seconds in the fading light. In his quick way he had already found a remedy, and he was wondering whether he should propose it or hold his peace. He was not afraid of incurring responsibility. The young Jesuit had appealed to him, and there was a way out of the difficulty. Christian felt that things could not be made worse than they were. In a moment his mind was made up. “As you know,” he said, “the Society has few friends and a multitude of enemies. I am afraid I am an enemy; but there is one redeeming point in the Jesuit record which we are all bound to recognise, and I recognise it unhesitatingly. You have done more to convert the heathen than the rest of the Christian Church put together. Whatever the motive has been, whatever the results have proved to be, the missionary work is unrivalled. Why do you not offer yourself for that?”