unrivalled love for Margaret had been his polar star.
It was quenched, and he drifted on the gloomy sea of no hope. He rushed
fiercely into pleasure, and in those days, more than now, pleasure was
vice. The large sums he had put by for Margaret gave him ample means for
debauchery, and he sought for a moment's oblivion in the excitements of
the hour. "Ghysbrecht lives; Margaret dies!" he would try out. "Curse
life, curse death, and whosoever made them what they are!"

His heart deteriorated along with his morals, and he no longer had
patience for his art, as the habits of pleasure grew on him.

Then life itself became intolerable to Gerard, and one night, in
resolute despair, he flung himself into the river. But he was not
allowed to drown, and was carried, all unconscious, to the Dominican
convent. Gerard awoke to find Father Jerome by his bedside.

"Good Father Jerome, how came I hither?" he inquired.

"By the hand of Heaven! You flung away God's gift. He bestowed it on you
again. Think of it! Hast tried the world and found its gall. Now try the
Church! The Church is peace. Pax vobiscum!"

Gerard learnt that the man who had saved him from drowning was a
professional assassin.

Saved from death by an assassin!

Was not this the finger of Heaven--of that Heaven he had insulted,
cursed, and defied?

He shuddered at his blasphemies. He tried to pray, but found he could
only utter prayers, and could not pray.

"I am doomed eternally!" he cried. "Doomed, doomed!" Then rose the
voices of the choir chanting a full service. Among them was one that
seemed to hover above the others--a sweet boy's voice, full, pure,
angelic.

He closed his eyes and listened. The days of his own boyhood flowed back
upon him.

"Ay," he sighed, "the Church is peace of mind. Till I left her bosom I
ne'er knew sorrow, nor sin."

And the poor torn, worn creature wept; and soon was at the knees of a
kind old friar, confessing his every sin with sighs and groans of
penitence.

And, lo! Gerard could pray now, and he prayed with all his heart.

He turned with terror and aversion from the world, and begged
passionately to remain in the convent. To him, convent nurtured, it was
like a bird returning wounded, wearied, to its gentle nest.

He passed his novitiate in prayer and mortification and pious reading
and meditation.

And Gerard, carried from the Tiber into that convent a suicide, now
passed for a young saint within its walls.

Upo