_Maurice_ comes home for the summer vacation, looking pale and emaciated. His mother ascribes his condition to the bad city air and hard study at school. But _Maurice_ suffers from a different cause. His is a mental struggle: the maddening struggle of doubt, the realization that he has lost his faith, that he has no vocation, and that he must give up his divinity studies. He knows how fanatically bent his people are on having him ordained, and he is tortured by the grief his decision will cause his parents. His heart is breaking as he at last determines to inform them.
He reasons and pleads with his parents and implores them not to drive him back to college. But they cannot understand. They remain deaf to his arguments; pitifully they beg him not to fail them, not to disappoint the hope of a lifetime. When it all proves of no avail, they finally disclose to _Maurice_ their gnawing secret: the farm has been mortgaged and many debts incurred for the sake of enabling him to attain to the priesthood.
_Michael._ Maurice, would you break our hearts?
_Maurice._ Father, would you have your son live a life of sacrilege? Would you, Father? Would you?
_Mrs. Harte._ That's only foolish talk. Aren't you every bit as good as the next?
_Maurice._ I may be, but I haven't a vocation.... My mind is finally made up.
_Mrs. Harte._ Maurice, listen to me--listen to me! ... If it went out about you this day, isn't it destroyed forever we'd be? Look! The story wouldn't be east in Macroom when we'd have the bailiffs walking in that door. The whole world knows he is to be priested next June, and only for the great respect they have for us through the means o' that, 'tisn't James McCarthy alone, but every other one o' them would come down on us straight for their money. In one week there wouldn't be a cow left by us, nor a horse, nor a lamb, nor anything at all!... Look at them books. 'Tis about time you should know how we stand here.... God knows, I wouldn't be hard on you at all, but look at the great load o' money that's on us this day, and mostly all on your account.
_Maurice._ Mother, don't make my cross harder to bear.
_Mrs. Harte._ An' would you be seeing a heavier cross put on them that did all that mortal man and woman could do for you?