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 peo ple 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!
