s after an earlier career which had been devoted to the
world, and, according to rumour, nearly wrecked in an affair of the
heart.

When the community had proved its legal right to exist within the
Establishment and public clamour had subsided, this disciple was
despatched to America, and there he established a branch brotherhood and
became great and famous. At the height of his usefulness and renown he
was recalled, and this exercise of authority provoked a universal outcry
among his admirers. But he obeyed; he left his fame and glory in America
and returned to his cell in London, and was no more heard of by the outer
world until the founder of the society died, when he was elected by the
brothers to the vacant place of Superior.

Father Lamplugh was now a man of seventy, so gentle in his manner, so
sweet in his temper, so pious in his life, that when he stepped out of
his room to greet John Storm on his arrival in Bishopsgate Street it
seemed as if he brought the air of heaven in the rustle of his habit, and
to have come from the holy of holies.

"Welcome! welcome!" he said. "I knew you would come to us; I have been
expecting you. The first time I saw you I said to myself: 'Here is one
who bears a burden; the world can not satisfy the cravings of a heart
like that; he will surrender it some day.'"

Having been there before, though in "Retreat" only, he entered at once
into the life of the Brotherhood. It was arranged that he was to spend
some two or three months as postulant, then to take the vow of a novice
for one year, and finally, if he proved his vocation, to seal and
establish his calling by taking the three life vows of poverty, chastity,
and obedience.

The home of the Brotherhood was one of those old London mansions in the
heart of the city, which were built perhaps for the palaces of
dignitaries of the Church, and were afterward occupied as the houses and
offices of London merchants and their apprentices, and have eventually
descended to the condition of warehouses and stores and tenement
dwellings for the poor. Its structure remained the same, but the brothers
made no effort to support its ancient grandeur. Nothing more simple can
be imagined than the appointments of their monastery. The carved-oak
staircase was there, but the stairs wore carpetless, and the panelled and
parqueted hall was bare of ornament, except for a picture, in a pale
oaken frame, of the head of Christ in its crown of thorns. A pla