ded over the faith that was dead; and in his self-torment his cheeks
became so hollow that the bones of his face seemed about to pierce the
skin, the flesh shrunk from his hands, and the fingers became long and
thin, like the claws of a vulture. He used to spend long hours with the
prior, while the old man talked gently, trying to bring faith to the
poor monk, that his soul might rest. But one day, in the midst of the
speaking, the prior stopped, and Jasper saw an expression of pain pass
over his face.

'What is it?'

'Nothing, my son,' he replied, smiling.... 'We enter the world with
pain, and with pain we leave it!'

'What do you mean? Are you ill? Father! father!'

The prior opened his mouth and showed a great sloughing sore; he put
Jasper's fingers to his neck and made him feel the enlarged and hardened
glands.

'What is it? You must see a surgeon.'

'No surgeon can help me, Brother Jasper. It is cancer, the Crab--it is
the way that God has sent to call me to Himself.'

Then the prior began to suffer the agonies of the disease, terrible
pains shot through his head and neck; he could not swallow. It was a
slow starvation; the torment kept him awake through night after night,
and only occasionally his very exhaustion gave him a little relief so
that he slept. Thinner and thinner he became, and his whole mouth was
turned into a putrid, horrible sore. But yet he never murmured. Brother
Jasper knelt by his bed, looking at him pitifully.

'How can you suffer it all? What have you done that God should give you
this? Was it not enough that you were blind?'

'Ah, I saw such beautiful things after I became blind--all heaven
appeared before me.'

'It is unjust--unjust!'

'My son, all is just.'

'You drive me mad!... Do you still believe in the merciful goodness of
God?'

A beautiful smile broke through the pain on the old man's face.

'I still believe in the merciful goodness of God!'

There was a silence. Brother Jasper buried his face in his hands and
thought brokenheartedly of his own affliction. How happy he could be if
he had that faith.... But the silence in the room was more than the
silence of people who did not speak. Jasper looked up suddenly.

The prior was dead.

Then the monk bent over the body and looked at the face into the opaque
white eyes; there was no difference, the flesh was warm--everything was
just the same, and yet ... and yet he was dead. What did they mean by
saying the soul had