* *

The first time that he was accused in chapter of a fault against the
Rule was a very great and shocking humiliation.

He had accused himself as usual on his knees of his own remissions, of
making an unnecessarily loud noise in drinking, of intoning a wrong
antiphon as cantor, of spilling crumbs in the refectory; and then leaned
back on his heels well content with the insignificance of his list, to
listen with a discreet complacency to old Dom Adrian, who had overslept
himself once, spilled his beer twice, criticised his superior, and
talked aloud to himself four times during the Greater Silence, and who
now mumbled out his crimes hastily and unconcernedly.

When the self-accusations were done, the others began, and to his horror
Chris heard his own name spoken.

"I accuse Dom Christopher Torridon of not keeping the guard of the eyes
at Terce this morning."

It was perfectly true; Chris had been so much absorbed in noticing an
effect of shade thrown by a corbel, and in plans for incorporating it
into his illumination that he had let a verse pass as far as the star
that marked the pause. He felt his heart leap with resentment. Then a
flash of retort came to him, and he waited his turn.

"I accuse Dom Bernard Parr of not keeping the guard of the eyes at Terce
this morning. He was observing me."

Just the faintest ripple passed round the line; and then the Prior spoke
with a tinge of sharpness, inflicting the penances, and giving Chris a
heavy sentence of twenty strokes with the discipline.

When Chris's turn came he threw back his habit petulantly, and
administered his own punishment as the custom was, with angry fervour.

As he was going out the Prior made him a sign, and took him through into
his own cell.

"Counter-accusations are contrary to the Rule," he said. "It must not
happen again," and dismissed him sternly.

And then Chris for a couple of days had a fierce struggle against
uncharitableness, asking himself whether he had not eyed Dom Bernard
with resentment, and then eyeing him again. It seemed too as if a fiend
suggested bitter sentences of reproach, that he rehearsed to himself,
and then repented. But on the third morning there came one of those
strange breezes of grace that he was beginning to experience more and
more frequently, and his sore soul grew warm and peaceful again.

* * * * *

It was in those kinds of temptation now that he found his warf