gling the strands of
motive, desire, fear and hope, and waited for the shaking loose of the
knot until he knew more.

Mass of the Holy Ghost was sung next morning by the Prior himself in red
vestments; and Chris waited with expectant awe, remembering how the
Carthusians under like circumstances had been visited by God; but the
Host was uplifted and the bell rang; and there was nothing but the
candle-lit gloom of the choir about the altar, and the sigh of the wind
in the chapels behind.

Then in the chapter-meeting the Prior told them all.

* * * * *

He reminded them how they had prayed that morning for guidance, and that
they must be fearless now in following it out. It was easy to be
reckless and call it faith, but prudence and reasonable common-sense
were attributes of the Christian no less than trust in God. They had not
to consider now what they would wish for themselves, but what God
intended for them so far as they could read it in the signs of the
times.

"For myself," he cried,--and Chris almost thought him sincere as he
spoke, so kindled was his face--"for myself I should ask no more than
to live and die in this place, as I had hoped. Every stone here is as
dear to me as to you, and I think more dear, for I have been in a
special sense the lord of it all; but I dare not think of that. We must
be ready to leave all willingly if God wills. We thought that we had
yielded all to follow Christ when we first set our necks here under His
sweet yoke; but I think He asks of us even more now; and that we should
go out from here even as we went out from our homes ten or twenty years
ago. We shall be no further from our God outside this place; and we may
be even nearer if we go out according to His will."

He seemed on fire with zeal and truth. His timid peevish air was gone,
and his delicate scholarly face was flushed as he spoke. Chris was
astonished, and more perplexed than ever. Was it then possible that
God's will might lie in the direction he feared?

"Now this is the matter which we have to consider," went on the Prior
more quietly. "His Grace has sent to ask, through a private messenger
from my Lord Cromwell, whether we will yield up the priory. There is no
compulsion in the matter--" he paused significantly--"and his Grace
desires each to act according to his judgment and conscience, of--of his
own free will."

There was a dead silence.

The news was almost expected by n