"
Father Anthony winced.
He said: "Do you deny yourself even the pleasure of the lad's company?
Alas, Father Victor, you forge your own spurs and goad yourself with
your own hands. What harm is there in being often with the lad?"
The sneer returned to the lips of Jean Paul Victor.
"The purpose would be lost--lost to my eyes and lost to his--the
purpose for which I have lived and for which he shall live. When I
first saw him he was a child, a baby, but he came to me and took one
finger of my hand in his small fist and looked up to me. Ah,
Gabrielle, the smile of an infant goes to the heart swifter than the
thrust of a knife! I looked down upon him and I knew that I was chosen
to teach the child. There was a voice that spoke in me. You will
smile, but even now I think I can hear it."
"I swear to you that I believe," said Father Anthony.
"Another man would have given Pierre a Bible and a Latin grammar and a
cell. I gave him the testament and the grammar; I gave him also the
wild north country to say his prayers in and patter his Latin.
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