thing the
vow is until you've broken it. It's like a hot iron searing your very
soul, and if you were dying and at the farthest ends of the earth, and
you had to crawl on your hands and knees, you would come back----"

He would have said more, but an attack of coughing silenced him, and when
it was over there was a sound of some one moving in the house.

"What is that?"

"It is the Father," said John. "Our voices have wakened him."

Paul struggled to his feet.

"It's only a life of penance and suffering you've come back to, my poor
lad."

"That's nothing--nothing at all--But are you sure you think I did
everything?"

"You did what you could. Are you going somewhere?"

"Yes, to the Father."

"God bless you, my lad!"

"And God bless you too, brother!"

Half an hour later, by the order of the Superior, John Storm, with the
help of Brother Andrew and the Father Minister, carried Brother Paul to
his cell. The bell had been rung for Lauds, and going up the stairs they
passed the brothers coming down to service. News of Paul's return had
gone through the house like a cutting wind, and certain of the brothers
who had gathered in groups on the landings were whispering together, as
if the coming back had been a shameful thing which cast discredit on all
of them. It wasn't love of rule that had brought the man home again, but
broken health and the want of a bed to die upon! Thus they talked under
their breath, unconscious of the secret operation of their own hearts. In
a monastery, as elsewhere, failure is the worst disgrace.

John Storm returned to the hall with a firm step and eyes full of
resolution. Hardly answering the brothers, who plied him with questions,
he pushed through them with long strides, and, taking the key of the
outer gate from the place in the alcove where he had left it, he turned
toward the Father's room.

The day had dawned, and through the darkness which was lifting in the
little room he could see the Father rising from his knees.

"Father!" he cried in an excited voice, and his words, like his breath,
came in gusts.

"What is it, my son?"

"Take this key back again. The world is calling me, and I can not trust
myself at the door any longer. Put me under the rule of silence and
solitude, and shut me up in a cell, or I shall break my obedience and run
away as sure as heaven is over us!"

XIV.

Glory awoke on New Year's morning with a little hard lump at her heart,
and thought: