“Look,” came the priest’s voice, and he turned again, and over the further bank, between two tall trees, shone a great silver rim of the rising moon.  A path of glory was struck now across the black water, and he pleased himself by travelling up it towards the remote splendour, noticing as he went how shadows had sprung into being in that moment, and how the same light that made the glory made the dark as well.  His soul seemed to emerge a stage higher yet from the limits in which the hot day and the shouting and the horns and the crowded woods had fettered it.  How remote and little seemed Ralph’s sneers and Nicholas’s indiscretions and Mary’s pity!  Here he moved round in a cooler and serener mood.  That keen mood, whether physical or spiritual he did not care to ask, made him inarticulate as he walked up with the priest ten minutes later.  But Mr. Carleton seemed to understand.

“There are some things besides the divorce best not talked about,” he said, “and I think bathing by starlight is one of them.”

They passed under the chapel window presently, and Chris noticed with an odd sensation of pleasure the little translucent patch of colour between the slender mullions thrown by the lamp within—­a kind of reflex or anti-type of the broad light shining over the water.

“Come up for a while,” went on the priest, as they reached the side-entrance, “if you are not too tired.”

The two went through the sacristy-door, locking it behind them, and up the winding stairs in the turret at the corner to the priest’s chamber.  Chris threw himself down, relaxed and happy, in the tall chair by the window, where he could look out and see the moon, clear of the trees now, riding high in heaven.

“That was a pity at supper,” said the priest presently, as he sat at the table.  “I love Sir Nicholas and think him a good Christian, but he is scarcely a discreet one.”

“Tell me, father,” broke out Chris, “what is going to happen?”

Mr. Carleton looked at him smiling.  He had a pleasant ugly face, with little kind eyes and sensitive mouth.

“You must ask Mr. Ralph,” he said, “or rather you must not.  But he knows more than any of us.”

“I wish he would not speak like that.”

“Dear lad,” said the priest, “you must not feel it like that.  Remember our Lord bore contempt as well as pain.”

There was silence a moment, and then Chris began again.  “Tell me about Lewes, father.  What will it be like?”

“It will be bitterly hard,” said the priest deliberately.  “Christ Church was too bitter for me, as you know.  I came out after six months, and the Cluniacs are harder.  I do not know if I lost my vocation or found it; but I am not the man to advise you in either case.”

“Ralph thinks it is easy enough.  He told me last night in the carriage that I need not trouble myself, and that monks had a very pleasant time.  He began to tell me some tale about Glastonbury, but I would not hear it.”