“This is only a beginning,” Mark pointed out.

“A very bad beginning,” Hett growled.  “Such brutalizing ugliness would be inexcusable if you were leading an active life.  But I gather that you claim to be contemplative here.  I’ve been reading your ridiculous monthly paper The Dragon.  Full of sentimental bosh about bringing back the glories of monasticism to England.  Tintern was not built of tin.  How can you contemplate Almighty God here?  It’s not possible.  What Divine purpose is served by collecting men under hundreds of square feet of corrugated iron?  I’m astonished at Charles Horner.  I thought he knew better than to encourage this kind of abomination.”

There was only one answer to make to Hett, which was that the religious life of the Community did not depend upon any externals, least of all upon its lodging; but when Mark tried to frame this answer, his lips would not utter the words.  In that moment he knew that it was time for him to leave Malford and prepare himself to be a priest elsewhere, and otherwise than by what the Rector had stigmatized as the pseudo-monastic life.

Mark wondered when he had left the chaplain to his ferocious meditations what would have been the effect of that diatribe upon some of his brethren.  He smiled to himself, as he sat over his solitary supper in the Refectory, to picture the various expressions he could imagine upon their faces when they came hotfoot from the Guest-chamber with the news of what manner of priest was in their midst.  And while he was sipping his bowl of pea-soup, he looked up at the image of St. George and perceived that the dragon’s expression bore a distinct resemblance to that of the Reverend Andrew Hett.  That night it seemed to Mark, in one of those waking trances that occur like dreams between one disturbed sleep and another, that the presence of the chaplain was shaking the flimsy foundations of the Abbey with such ruthlessness that the whole structure must soon collapse.

“It’s only the wind,” he murmured, with that half of his mind which was awake.  “March is going out like a dragon.”

After Mass next day, when Mark was giving the chaplain his breakfast, the latter asked who kept the key of the tabernacle.

“Brother Birinus, I expect.  He is the sacristan.”

“It ought to have been given to me before Mass.  Please go and ask for it,” requested the chaplain.

Mark found Brother Birinus in the Sacristy, putting away the white vestments in the press.  When Mark gave him the chaplain’s message, Brother Birinus told him that the Reverend Brother had the key.

“What does he want the key for?” asked Brother George when Mark had repeated to him the chaplain’s request.

“He probably wishes to change the Host,” Mark suggested.

“There is no need to do that.  And I don’t believe that is the reason.  I believe he wants to have Benediction.  He’s not going to have Benediction here.”