He sank his voice impressively as he concluded--“For ten years thereafter, Agostino, I wore a hair-shirt day and night, and for girdle a knotted length of whip-cord in which were embedded thorns that stung and chafed me and tore my body. For ten years, then, I never knew bodily ease or proper rest at night. Only thus could I bring into subjection my rebellious flesh, and save myself from the way of ordinary men which to me must have been a path of sacrilege and sin. I was devout. Had I not been devout and strong in my devotion I could never have endured what I was forced to endure as the alternative to damnation, because without consideration for my nature I had been ordained a priest. “Consider this, Agostino; consider it well. I would not have you go that way, nor feel the need to drive yourself from temptation by such a spur. Because I know--I say it in all humility, Agostino, I hope, and thanking God for the exceptional grace He vouchsafed me to support me--that for one priest without vocation who can quench temptation by such agonizing means, a hundred perish, which is bad; and by the scandal of their example they drive many from the Church and set a weapon in the hands of her enemies, which is a still heavier reckoning to meet hereafter.” A spell of silence followed. I was strangely moved by his tale, strangely impressed by the warning that I perceived in it. And yet my confidence, I think, was all unshaken. And when presently he rose, took up his taper, and stood by my bedside to ask me once again did I believe myself to be called, I showed my confidence in my answer. “It is my hope and prayer that I am called, indeed,” I said. “The life that will best prepare me for the world to come is the life I would follow.” He looked at me long and sadly. “You must do as your heart bids you,” he sighed. “And when you have seen the world, your heart will have learnt to speak to you more plainly.” And upon that he left me. Next day I set out. My leave-takings were brief. My mother shed some tears and many prayers over me at parting. Not that she was moved to any grief at losing me. That were a grief I should respect and the memory of which I should treasure as a sacred thing. Her tears were tears of dread lest, surrounded by perils in the world, I should succumb and thus falsify her vows. She, herself, confessed it in the valedictory words she addressed to me. Words that left the conviction clear upon my mind that the fulfilment of her vow was the only thing concerning me that mattered. To the price that later might be paid for it I cannot think that she ever gave a single thought. Tears there were too in the eyes of Fra Gervasio. My mother had suffered me to do no more than kiss her hand--as was my custom. But the friar took me to his bosom, and held me tight a moment in his long arms. “Remember!” he murmured huskily and impressively. And then, putting me from him, “God help and guide you, my son,” were his last words.