"Lacking proof, I do not accept these stories as facts, although, as there is no smoke without fire, I think it probable that there is something in them and that you are drifting into undesirable companionships. At any rate I am sure that the time has come for you to return home and to commence your studies for the Church. I have to request, therefore, that you will do this at once as I am entering your name at my own college for the next term and have so informed the trustees under Miss Ogilvy's will, who will no doubt meet the expense and give you a suitable allowance. I am writing to the Pasteur Boiset to the same effect. Looking forward to seeing you, when we can discuss all these matters in more detail, --I am, your affectionate father, "Richard Knight."
In dismay Godfrey took this letter to the Pasteur. For the last thing Godfrey wished to do was to leave Kleindorf and the house in which he was so welcome and so well treated, in order to return to the stony bosom of Monk's Acre Abbey.
"I have also received a letter," said Monsieur Boiset; "it seems that you and I always receive disagreeable letters together. The last were from the witch-woman Riennes, and these are from your father. He has an unpleasant way of writing, this father of yours, although he is a good man, for here he suggests that I am trying to trap you for a son-@@in-law, wherein I see the fat finger of that witch Riennes, who has so great a passion for the anonymous epistle. Well, if he had said that I wished to trap you for a son, he would have shot nearer to the bulls'-@@eye, but for a son-in-law, as you know, it is not so. Still, you must go; indeed, it is time that you went, now that you talk French so well, and have, I hope, learnt other things also, you to whom the big world opens. But see, your father talks of your entering the Church.
Tell me, is this so? If so, of course, I shall be happy."
"No," said Godfrey, shaking his head.
"Then," replied the Pasteur, "I may say that I am equally happy. It is not everyone that has a call for this vocation, and there are more ways of doing good in the world than from the floor of a pulpit.
Myself, I have wondered sometimes--but let that be; it is the lot of certain of us, who think in our vanity that we could have done great things, to be obliged to do the small things, because God has so decreed. To one He gives the ten talents, to the other only one talent, or even but a franc. Whatever it be, of it we must make the best, and so long as we do not bury it, we have done well. I can only say that I have tried to use my franc, or my fifty centimes, to such advantage as I could, and hope that in some other place and time I may be entrusted with a larger sum. Oh! my boy, we are all of us drawn by the horses of Circumstance, but, as I believe, those horses have a driver who knows whither he is guiding us."
A few days later Godfrey went. His last midday meal at the Maison Blanche, before he departed to catch the night train for Paris, was rather a melancholy function. Madame, who had grown fond of him in her somewhat frivolous way, openly dropped tears into her soup. Juliette looked sad and /distraite/, though inwardly supported by the knowledge that her distant cousin, the notary Jules, was arriving on the morrow to spend his vacation at the Maison Blanche, so that Godfrey's room would not be without an occupant. Indeed, in her pretty little head she was already planning certain alterations in the arrangement of the furniture, to make it more comfortable to the very different tastes of the new comer.