"And it is precisely because people in my position habitually commit apostasy that I decline to do what is expected of me. No. I'll follow my cat's example of exclusive singularity. It would be too obliging and too silly to give you Catholics that weapon to use against me. No, no, Eminency, rest assured that I rather will be a nuisance and poor, as I am, than an apostate and rich, as I might be."

The cardinal raised his eyebrows. "I trust you have a worthier motive than that!"

"I mentioned that I was not in revolt against the Faith, but against the Faithful."

"And the Grace of God?"

"Oh, of course the Grace of God," George hastened in common courtesy conventionally to adjoin.

The fine dark brows came down again, and the cardinal continued, "As soon as I had issued the mandate to my suffragans, Dr. Talacryn at once furnished the desired information."

"I see," said George. Then, "Where would Your Eminency like me to begin?"

"Tell me your own tale in your own way, dear child."

George softly and swiftly stroked his little cat. He compelled himself to think intensely, to marshal salient facts on which he had brooded day and night unceasingly for years, and to try to eliminate traces of the acerbity, of the devouring fury, with which they still inspired him.

"Perhaps I'd better tell Mr. Rose, Yrmnts, that we've already gone very deeply into his case," the bishop said. "It will make it easier for him to speak when he knows that it is not information we're seeking, but his personal point of view."

[Pg 27]

[Pg 27]

"Indeed it will," said George; "and I sincerely thank Your Lordship. If you already know the facts, you will be able to check my narrative; and all I have to do is to state the said facts to the best of my knowledge and belief. I will begin with my career at Maryvale, where I was during a scholastic year of eight months as an ecclesiastical subject of the Bishop of Claughton, and where I received the Tonsure. At the end of those eight months, my diocesan wrote that he was unable to make any further plans for me, because there was not (I quote his words) an unanimous verdict of the superiors in favour of my Vocation. This was like a bolt from the blue: for the four superiors verbally had 

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