to the dust?'

He felt that Canon Beecher's eyes never left him for a moment while he
spoke. He looked up, and saw in them an intense pleading. There
stole over him a desire to yield, to submit himself to this appealing
tenderness. He defended himself desperately against his weakness.

'I am not choosing the pleasanter way. It would be easier for me to give
up the fight for Ireland, to desert the beaten side, to forget the lost
cause.' He turned to Canon Beecher, speaking almost fiercely: 'Do you
think it is a small thing for me to surrender your friendship, and
perhaps--perhaps to lose Marion? Is there not _some_ of the nobility of
sacrifice in refusing to listen to you?'

'I cannot argue with you. No doubt you are cleverer than I am. But I
_know_ this--God is love, and only he who dwelleth in love dwelleth in
God.'

'But I do love: I love Ireland.'

'Ah yes; but He says, "Love your enemies."'

'Then,' said Hyacinth, 'I will not have Him for my God.'

Hardly had he spoken than he started and grew suddenly cold. It was no
doubt some trick of memory, but he believed that he heard very faintly
from far off a remembered voice:

'Will you be sure to know the good side from the bad, the Captain from
the enemy.'

They were the last words his father had said to him. They had passed
unregarded when they were spoken, but lingered unthought of in some
recess of his memory. Now they came on him full of meaning, insistent
for an answer.

'You have chosen,' said the Canon.

He had chosen. Could he be sure that he had chosen right, that he knew
the good side from the bad?

'You have chosen, and I have no more to say. Only, before it becomes
impossible for you and me to kneel together, I ask you to let me pray
with you once more. You can do this because you still believe He hears
us, although you have decided to walk no more with Him.'

They knelt together, and Hyacinth, numbly indifferent, felt his hand
grasped and held.

'O Christ,' said Canon Beecher, 'this child of Thine has chosen to live
by hatred rather than by love. Do Thou therefore remove love from him,
lest it prove a hindrance to him on the way on which he goes. Let the
memory of the cross be blotted out from his mind, so that he may do
successfully that which he desires.'

Hyacinth wrenched his hand free from the grasp which held it, and flung
himself forward across the table at which they knelt. Except for his
sobs and his choking efforts to subdue t