Obey, and I go to Him with a quiet soul." For a moment he was tempted.

Surely it was a little thing this, to gladden the dying.

The rich Abbey of Montmirail was his for the taking, and where would a scholar's life be more happily lived than among its cool cloisters?
A year ago, when he had been in the mood of seeing all contraries but as degrees in an ultimate truth, he might have assented.
But in that dim chamber, with burning faces around him and the shadow of death overhead, he discovered in himself a new scrupulousness.

It was the case of Esau; he was bidden sell his birthright for pottage, and affection could not gloze over the bargain.
"I have no vocation," he said sadly.

"I would fain do the will of God, but God must speak His will to each heart, and He does not speak thus to me." There was that in the words which woke a far-away memory of her girlhood.