re in his worn purple cassock, with clean-shaven hawk's face and
black bushy eyebrows most conspicuous on account of his grey hair, stood
before the empty summer grate, his long lean neck out-thrust, his arms
crossed behind his back, like a gigantic and emaciated shadow of
Napoleon. Mark felt no embarrassment in genuflecting to salute him; the
action was spontaneous and was not dictated by any ritualistic
indulgence. Dr. Oliphant, as he might have guessed from the anger with
which his appointment had been received, was in outward semblance all
that a prelate should be.

"Why do you want to be a priest?" the Bishop asked him abruptly.

"To administer the Sacraments," Mark replied without hesitation.

The Bishop's head and neck wagged up and down in grave approbation.

"Mr. Rowley, as no doubt he has told you, wrote to me about you. And so
you've been with the Order of St. George lately? Is it any good?"

Mark was at a loss what to reply to this. His impulse was to say firmly
and frankly that it was no good; but after not far short of two years at
Malford it would be ungrateful and disloyal to criticize the Order,
particularly to the Bishop of the diocese.

"I don't think it is much good yet," Mark said. He felt that he simply
could not praise the Order without qualification. "But I expect that
when they've learnt how to combine the contemplative with the active
side of their religious life they will be splendid. At least, I hope
they will."

"What's wrong at present?"

"I don't know that anything's exactly wrong."

Mark paused; but the Bishop was evidently waiting for him to continue,
and feeling that this was perhaps the best way to present his own point
of view about the life he had chosen for himself he plunged into an
account of life at Malford.

"Capital," said the Bishop when the narrative was done. "You have given
me a very clear picture of the present state of the Order and
incidentally a fairly clear picture of yourself. Well, I'm going to
recommend you to Canon Havelock, the Principal of the Theological
College here, and if he reports well of you and you can pass the
Cambridge Preliminary Theological Examination, I will ordain you at
Advent next year, or at any rate, if not in Advent, at Whitsuntide."

"But isn't Silchester Theological College only for graduates?" Mark
asked.

"Yes, but I'm going to suggest that Canon Havelock stretches a point in
your favour. I can, if you like, write to the Glas