assed back with his sacred burden,
and Chris had fallen on his knees where he stood as he caught a glimpse
of the white procession passing back to the church, their frosty breath
going up together in the winter night air, the wheeling shadows, and the
glare of the torches giving a pleasant warm light in the dull cloister.

But all that was over now, and the end was at hand.

As Chris knelt there, mechanically responding to the prayers on which
the monk's soul was beginning to lift itself and flutter for escape,
there fell a great solemnity on his spirit. The thought, as old as
death, made itself real to him, that this was the end of every man and
of himself too. Where Dom Augustine lay, he would lie, with his past
behind him, of which every detail would be instinct with eternal import.
All the tiny things of the monastic life--the rising in time for the
night office, attention during it, the responses to grace, the little
movements prescribed by etiquette, the invisible motions of a soul that
had or had not acted for the love of God, those stirrings, falls,
aspirations, that incessant activity of eighty years--all so incredibly
minute from one point of view, so incredibly weighty from another--the
account of all those things was to be handed in now, and an eternal
judgment given.

He looked at the wearied, pained old face again, at the tight-shut eyes,
the jerking movements of the unshaven lips, and wondered what was
passing behind;--what strange colloquy of the soul with itself or its
Master or great personages of the Court of Heaven. And all was set in
this little bare setting of white walls, a tumbled bed, a shuttered
window, a guttering candle or two, a cross of ashes on boards, a ring
of faces, and a murmur of prayers!

The solemnity rose and fell in Chris's soul like a deep organ-note
sounding and waning. How homely and tender were these last rites, this
accompaniment of the departing soul to the edge of eternity with all
that was dear and familiar to it--the drops of holy water, the mellow
light of candles, and the sonorous soothing Latin! And yet--and yet--how
powerless to save a soul that had not troubled to make the necessary
efforts during life, and had lost the power of making them now!

* * * * *

When all was over he went out of the cell with an indescribable gravity at
his heart.

* * * * *

When the great events in the spring of '34 b