Father Xavier was completely master of his own emotions.

Father Xavier was his confidant as well as confessor, but he seems not to have been able to disperse the gloom which settled over the leader's mind.

Indeed, if the truth had been known, even the Bishop of Montreal had felt that Father Francis Xavier was too ambitious a character to reside safely in too close proximity to himself; and engrossing employment at a distance for him, rather than the expressed solicitude for Father Ignatius, prompted this appointment.