touch could not have been
lighter.

"It's not----?" he said, and then stopped.

"Yes, it is," Mark answered. "I am to be a domestic chaplain to that
pious old ass, Lord Lofton. It seems I need quiet for study--quiet to
rot in! My God! is that how I am to work for souls?"

It was, perhaps, better for Mark that Jack Marny broke down completely
at the news, for, by the time he had been forced into telling his friend
that it was preposterous to suppose that any man was necessary for God's
work, and that if they had faith at all they must believe that God
allowed this to happen, light began to dawn in his own mind. But he was
almost frightened at the passionate resentment of the Kelt; he saw there
was serious danger of some outbreak on his part against the authorities.

"They won't catch me staying here after you are gone!"

"Much good that would do me," said Mark. "I should get all the blame."

"They must learn that we are not slaves!" thundered the curate, his fair
face absolutely black with wrath.

"We are God's slaves," said Mark, in a low voice, and then there was
silence between them for the space of half an hour.

The door opened and a shrill voice cried out, "There's Tom Turner at the
door asking for Father Mark," and the door was banged to again.

Tom Turner was the very flower of Mark's converts to a good life.

Father Marny groaned at the name.

"Let me see him," he said. "Go out and get a walk."

"I'd rather see him; I don't know how much oftener----"

The sentence was not finished. He had left the room in two strides.

CHAPTER XXXVI

MENE THEKEL PHARES

The more Edmund reflected on the matter the more difficult he found it
to decide what steps to take in order to approach Molly. In the first
impulse he had thought only that here was the chance of serving her, of
proving her friend in difficulty, which he had particularly wished for.
It would make reparation for the past--a past he keenly defended in his
own mind as he had defended it to Molly herself, but yet a past that he
would wish to make fully satisfactory by reparation for what he would
not confess to have been blameworthy. But when he tried to realise
exactly what he should have to tell Molly it seemed impossible. For how
could he meet her questions; her indignant protests? She would become
more and more indignant at the plot that had been carried on against
her, a plot which Edmund had started and had carried on until quite
la