Father John watched him go, and a trembling smile came to his lips when he was alone.

In his heart he knew he was a coward, and that these young people had been stronger than he.

For in their happiness and the faith which he had falsely built up in them they had resigned themselves to the inevitable, while he, in these moments of cowardice, had shown them the way to temptation.

And yet as he stood there, looking in the direction they had gone, he felt no remorse because of what he had done, and a weight seemed to have lifted itself from his shoulders.
For a time the more selfish instincts of the man rose in him, fighting down the sacrificial humility of the great faith of which he was a messenger.

The new sensation thrilled him, and in its thrill he felt his heart beating a little faster, and hope rising in him.