cious glance at Mark.

"Why didn't you tell me that you had an introduction from Sir Charles
Horner?"

"I didn't know that I had," Mark answered in some astonishment. "I only
met him here a few days ago for the first time. He invited me to lunch,
and he was very pleasant; but I never asked him to write to you, nor did
he suggest doing so."

"Have you any vices?" Father Burrowes asked abruptly.

"I don't think--what do you mean exactly?" Mark inquired.

"Drink?"

"No, certainly not."

"Women?"

Mark flushed.

"No." He wondered if he should speak of the episode of St. John's eve
such a short time ago; but he could not bring himself to do so, and he
repeated the denial.

"You seem doubtful," the Superior insisted.

"As a matter of fact," said Mark, "since you press this point I ought
to tell you that I took a vow of celibacy when I was sixteen."

Father Burrowes looked at him sharply.

"Did you indeed? That sounds very morbid. Don't you like women?"

"I don't think a priest ought to marry. I was told by Sir Charles that
you vowed yourself to the monastic life when you were not much more than
seventeen. Was that morbid?"

The Superior laughed boisterously, and Mark glad to have put him in a
good humour laughed with him. It was only after the interview was over
that the echo of that laugh sounded unpleasantly in the caves of memory,
that it rang false somehow like a denial of himself.

"Well, I suppose we must try you as a probationer at any rate," said the
Superior. And suddenly his whole manner changed. He became affectionate
and sentimental as he put his hand on Mark's shoulder.

"I hope, dear lad, that you will find a vocation to serve our dear Lord
in the religious life. God bless you and give you endurance in the path
you have chosen."

Mark reproached himself for his inclination to dislike the Reverend
Father to whom he now owed filial affection, piety, and respect, apart
from what he owed him as a Christian of Christian charity. He should
gain but small spiritual benefit from his self-chosen experiment if this
was the mood in which he was beginning his monastic life; and when
Brother Jerome, who was acting novice-master, began to instruct him in
his monastic duty, he made up his mind to drive out that demon of
criticism or rather to tame it to his own service by criticizing
himself. He wrote on markers for his favourite devotional books:

_Observe at every moment of the day the good in others