"Yes," he responded steadily. "I have confessed to you at St. Eulalia, but I am not of your communion."
He turned, and walked away quickly, not looking at Phil. He resolved not to bother his head about this unchancy encounter. It was awkward, and the fact that he had never confided in Ashe seemed to give to these visits to St. Eulalia an air almost of under-handedness; but there was nothing wrong, he told himself, and he would not be vexed at this moment when he was full of delight at the probability of discovering the missing will. He was certainly in no danger of becoming a Catholic. He smiled to think how little likely he was to exchange the too strict rule of the Clergy House for one which might be more rigid still. The keen thought now was the remembrance of the wealth which he hoped soon to possess.
"Phil, old man," he said joyously, "I believe I shall get Aunt Hannah's money after all. I always felt that it belonged to me."
"Yes," Ashe replied, so dully that Maurice turned to him quickly.
"Come, Phil, don't answer me like that. What are you moping about?"
There was no answer for a moment. Maurice, full of a fresh vigor born of the discovery of the afternoon, was yet rebuked by the silence of his friend.
"Of course, Phil," he went on, "you know I don't mean anything unkind. I am no end obliged to you for taking me there this afternoon. When we go tomorrow"--
"I shall never go there again," Ashe interrupted.
"I went to-day to say good-by to my sinful folly. I shall not go again."
A prickling irritation began to make itself felt in the mind of Maurice. Even so slight a contact with the material realities of life as this interest in the will had put him completely out of tune with the monkish mood.
"Oh, stuff, Phil!" he exclaimed. "For heaven's sake don't be so morbid. You talk like a mediæval anchorite."
"It doesn't seem possible that this is you, Maurice."
"It is I," was the sturdy answer; "and it is I in a sane frame of mind, old fellow. Come, it's no sin to be human; and as far as I can see that's the only fault you've committed."
"Maurice," Ashe retorted in a voice of intense feeling, "have you thrown away everything that we believe? Aren't you with us any more?"
The pronoun which seemed to separate him from the company to which his friend belonged struck harshly on Maurice's ear. He felt himself being forced to define for Philip thoughts which he had thus far declined to define for himself.