ooked in astonishment at
Father Burrowes, who had offered him the key to his action.

"Well, we must forget what we heard, my son," said the Father Superior.
"Sit down, and let's finish off these letters."

An hour's work was done, at the end of which the Reverend Father asked
Mark if his had been the blank paper when the votes were counted in
Chapter, and when Mark admitted that it had been, he pressed him for the
reason of his neutrality.

"I'm not sure that it oughtn't to be called indecision," said Mark. "I
was personally interested in the keeping on of Aldershot, because I had
worked there."

"Then why not have voted for doing so?" the Superior asked, in accents
that were devoid of the least grudge against Mark for disagreeing with
himself.

"I tried to get rid of my personal opinion," Mark explained. "I tried to
look at the question strictly from the standpoint of the member of a
community. As such I felt that the Reverend Brother was wrong to run
counter to his Superior. At the same time, if you'll forgive me for
saying so, I felt that you were wrong to give up Aldershot. I simply
could not arrive at a decision between the two opinions."

"I do not blame you, my son, for your scrupulous cast of mind. Only
beware of letting it chill your enthusiasm. Satan may avail himself of
it one day, and attack your faith. Solomon was just. Our Blessed Lord,
by our cowardly standards, was unjust. Remembering the Gadarene swine,
the barren fig-tree, the parable of the wedding-guest without a garment,
Martha and Mary. . . ."

"Martha and Mary!" interrupted Mark. "Why, that was really the point at
issue. And the ointment that might have been sold for the benefit of the
poor. Yes, Judas would have voted with the Reverend Brother."

"And Pontius Pilate would have remained neutral," added Father Burrowes,
his blue eyes glittering with delight at the effect upon Mark of his
words.

But when Mark was walking back to the Abbey down the winding drive among
the hazels, he wished that he and not the Reverend Father had used that
illustration. However, useless regrets for his indecision in the matter
of the priory at Aldershot were soon obliterated by a new cause of
division, which was the arrival of the Reverend Andrew Hett on the Vigil
of the Annunciation, just in time to sing first Vespers.

It fell to Mark's lot to entertain the new chaplain that evening,
because Brother Jerome who had become guest-master when Brother Ansel