where the monks were buried, wondering confusedly whether all
that prayer and effort had been offered up to empty images of what--of
the fear of Man? Turning round, he started back and his heart beat, for
the prior was standing close by, looking at him with those horrible
eyes. Brother Jasper trembled so that he could scarcely stand; he looked
down.

'Brother Jasper!' The prior's voice seemed sterner than it had ever been
before. 'Brother Jasper!'

'Father!'

'What have you to tell me?'

Jasper looked up at him; the blood fled from his lips.

'Nothing, my father!' The prior looked at him firmly, and Jasper thought
he read the inmost secrets of his heart.

'Speak, Brother Jasper!' said the prior, and his voice was loud and
menacing.

Then hurriedly, stuttering in his anxiety, the monk confessed his
misery.... A horror came over the prior's face as he listened, and
Jasper became so terrified that he could hardly speak; but the prior
seemed to recover himself, and interrupted him with a furious burst of
anger.

'You look over the plain and do not see God, and for that you doubt Him?
Miserable fool!'

'Oh, father, have mercy on me! I have tried so hard. I want to believe.
But I cannot.'

'I cannot! I cannot! What is that? Have men believed for a thousand
years--has God performed miracle after miracle--and a miserable monk
dares to deny Him?'

'I cannot believe!'

'You must!' His voice was so loud that it rang through the cloisters. He
seized Jasper's clasped hands, raised in supplication before him, and
forced him to his knees. 'I tell you, you shall believe!'

Quivering with wrath, he looked at the prostrate form at his feet, moved
by convulsive weeping. He raised his hand as if to strike the monk, but
with difficulty contained himself.

Then the prior bade Brother Jasper go to the church and wait. The monks
were gathered together, all astonished. They stood in their usual
places, but Jasper remained in the middle, away from them, with head
cast down. The prior called out to them in his loud, clear voice,--

'Pray, my brethren, pray for the soul of Brother Jasper, which lies in
peril of eternal death.'

The monks looked at him suddenly, and Brother Jasper's head sank lower,
so that no one could see his face. The prior sank to his knees and
prayed with savage fervour. Afterwards the monks went their ways; but
when Jasper passed them they looked down, and when by chance he
addressed a novice, the youth