the young man; "I wish I could learn the gentle art of
sending people away without offending them."

"They didn't include that in the curriculum at Oxford?" The tone was not
quite kind; neither was the snort with which the remark was concluded.
It was no sauce to the lumpy, greasy mutton that Mark was struggling to
eat. Suddenly he caught the eye of the second curate, Father Marny, who
had conceived a great affection for him, and he smiled merrily with a
school-boy's sense of mischief.

CHAPTER XVII

THE BLIND CANON

In a small room in a small house in a small street in Chelsea, Father
Molyneux was sitting with a friend. There were a few beautiful things in
the room, and a few well-bound books; but they had a dusty, uncared for
look about them. It teased the young priest to see a medicine bottle and
a half-washed medicine glass standing on a bracket with an exquisite
statuette of the Madonna. The present occupier of these lodgings had had
very true artistic perceptions before he had become blind.

Mark Molyneux had just been reading to him for an hour, and he now put
down the book. The old man smacked his lips with enjoyment. The author
was new to him, but he had won his admiration at the first reading.

"What people call his paradoxes," he said, "is his almost despairing
attempt at making people pay attention; he has to shout to men who are
too hurried to stop. The danger is that, as time goes on, he will only
be able to think in contrasts and to pursue contradictions."

The speaker paused, and then, his white fingers groped a little as if he
were feeling after something. His voice was rich and low. Then he kept
still, and waited with a curious look of acquired patience. At last,
the younger man began.

"I want to ask your advice, or rather, I want to tell you something I
have decided on."

"And you only want me to agree," laughed Canon Nicholls, and the blind
face seemed full of perception.

"Well, I think you will." The boyish voice was bright and keen. "I've
come to tell you that I want to be a monk."

"Tut, tut," said Canon Nicholls, and then they both laughed together.
"Since when?" he asked a moment later.

"It has been coming by degrees," said Mark, in a low voice. "I want to
be altogether for God."

"And why can't you be that now?"

"It's too confusing," he said; "half the day I am amused or worried or
tired. I've got next to no spiritual life."

Canon Nicholls did not help him to sa