“What then?”

“A Carmelite.  I have seen a great deal of these monks lately, and it is only they who preserve some of the old spirit of the old ideal.  To enter the Carmelite Chapel in Kensington is to step out of the mean atmosphere of to-day into the lofty charm of the Middle Ages.  The long straight folds of habits falling over sandalled feet, the great rosaries hanging down from the girdles, the smell of burning wax, the large tonsures, the music of the choir; I know nothing like it.  Last Sunday I heard them sing St Fortunatus’ hymn,... the Vexilla regis heard in the cloud of incense, and the wrath of the organ!... splendid are the rhymes! the first stanza in U and O, the second in A, and the third in E; passing over the closed vowels, the hymn ascends the scale of sound—­”

“Now, John, none of that nonsense; how dare you, sir?  Don’t attempt to laugh at your mother.”

“My dear mother, you must not think I am sneering because I speak of what is uppermost in my mind.  I have determined to become a Carmelite monk, and that is why I came down here.”

Mrs Norton was very angry; her temper fumed, and she would have burst into violent words had not the last words, “and that is why I came down here,” frightened her into calmness.

“What do you mean?” she said, turning round in her chair.  “You came down here to become a Carmelite monk; what do you mean?”

John hesitated.  He was clearly a little frightened, but having gone so far he felt he must proceed.  Besides, to-day, or to-morrow, sooner or later the truth would have to be told.  He said: 

“I intend altering the house a little here and there; you know how repugnant this mock Italian architecture is to my feelings....  I am coming to live here with some monks—­”

“You must be mad, sir; you mean to say that you intend to pull down the house of your ancestors and turn it into a monastery?”

John drew a breath of relief, the worst was over now; she had spoken the fulness of his thought.  Yes, he was going to turn Thornby Place into a monastery.

“Yes,” he said, “if you like to put it in that way.  Yes, I am going to turn Thornby Place into a monastery.  Why shouldn’t I?  I am resolved never to marry; and I have no one except those dreadful cousins to leave the place to.  Why shouldn’t I turn it into a monastery and become a monk?  I wish to save my soul.”

Mrs Norton groaned.

“But you make me say more than I mean.  To turn the place into a Gothic monastery, such a monastery as I dreamed would not be possible, unless indeed I pulled the whole place down, and I have not sufficient money to do that, and I do not wish to mortgage the property.  For the present I am determined only on a few alterations.  I have them all in my head.  The billiard room, that addition of yours, can be turned into a chapel.  And the casements of the dreadful bow-window might be removed, and mullions and tracery fixed on, and, instead of the present flat roof, a sloping tiled roof might be carried up against the wall of the house.  The cloisters would come at the back of the chapel.”