es grew blacker
than the night, his lips were pale with agony and fasting. He had not
dared to speak to anyone, he could not tell them, and in him was the
impulse to shout out, 'Why should there be?' Now he could bear it no
longer. In the morning he went to the prior's cell, and, falling on his
knees, buried his face in the old man's lap.

'Oh, father, help me! help me!'

The prior was old and wasted; for fifty years he had lived in the desert
Castilian plain in the little monastery--all through his youth and
manhood, through his age; and now he was older than anyone at San
Lucido. White haired and wrinkled, but with a clear, rosy skin like a
boy's; his soft blue eyes had shone with light, but a cataract had
developed, and gradually his sight had left him till he could barely see
the crucifix in his cell and the fingers of his hand; at last he could
only see the light. But the prior did not lose the beautiful serenity of
his life; he was always happy and kind; and feeling that his death could
not now be very distant, he was filled with a heavenly joy that he would
shortly see the face of God. Long hours he sat in his chair looking at
the light with an indescribably charming smile hovering on his lips.

His voice broken by sobs, Brother Jasper told his story, while the prior
gently stroked the young man's hands and face.

'Oh, father, make me believe!'

'One cannot force one's faith, my dear. It comes, it goes, and no man
knows the wherefore. Faith does not come from reasoning; it comes from
God.... Pray for it and rest in peace.'

'I want to believe so earnestly. I am so unhappy!'

'You are not the only one who has been tried, my son. Others have
doubted before you and have been saved.'

'But if I died to-night--I should die in mortal sin.'

'Believe that God counts the attempt as worthy as the achievement.'

'Oh, pray for me, father, pray for me! I cannot stand alone. Give me
your strength.'

'Go in peace, my son; I will pray for you, and God will give you
strength!'

Jasper went away.

Day followed day, and week followed week; the spring came, and the
summer; but there was no difference in the rocky desert of San Lucido.
There were no trees to bud and burst into leaf, no flowers to bloom and
fade; biting winds gave way to fiery heat, the sun beat down on the
plain, and the sky was cloudless, cloudless--even the nights were so hot
that the monks in their cells gasped for breath. And Brother Jasper
broo