make to Hett, which was that the religious
life of the Community did not depend upon any externals, least of all
upon its lodging; but when Mark tried to frame this answer, his lips
would not utter the words. In that moment he knew that it was time for
him to leave Malford and prepare himself to be a priest elsewhere, and
otherwise than by what the Rector had stigmatized as the pseudo-monastic
life.

Mark wondered when he had left the chaplain to his ferocious
meditations what would have been the effect of that diatribe upon some
of his brethren. He smiled to himself, as he sat over his solitary
supper in the Refectory, to picture the various expressions he could
imagine upon their faces when they came hotfoot from the Guest-chamber
with the news of what manner of priest was in their midst. And while he
was sipping his bowl of pea-soup, he looked up at the image of St.
George and perceived that the dragon's expression bore a distinct
resemblance to that of the Reverend Andrew Hett. That night it seemed to
Mark, in one of those waking trances that occur like dreams between one
disturbed sleep and another, that the presence of the chaplain was
shaking the flimsy foundations of the Abbey with such ruthlessness that
the whole structure must soon collapse.

"It's only the wind," he murmured, with that half of his mind which was
awake. "March is going out like a dragon."

After Mass next day, when Mark was giving the chaplain his breakfast,
the latter asked who kept the key of the tabernacle.

"Brother Birinus, I expect. He is the sacristan."

"It ought to have been given to me before Mass. Please go and ask for
it," requested the chaplain.

Mark found Brother Birinus in the Sacristy, putting away the white
vestments in the press. When Mark gave him the chaplain's message,
Brother Birinus told him that the Reverend Brother had the key.

"What does he want the key for?" asked Brother George when Mark had
repeated to him the chaplain's request.

"He probably wishes to change the Host," Mark suggested.

"There is no need to do that. And I don't believe that is the reason. I
believe he wants to have Benediction. He's not going to have Benediction
here."

Mark felt that it was not his place to argue with the Reverend Brother,
and he merely asked him what reply he was to give to the chaplain.

"Tell him that the key of the Tabernacle is kept by me while the
Reverend Father is away, and that I regret I cannot give it t