elations were at an end.

On the night of the ball he walked over to the hospital and asked for
her. She had gone, and it seemed as if the earth itself had given way
beneath his feet.

He could not help feeling bitterly about Polly Love, and that caused him
to remember a patient to whom her selfish little heart had shown no
kindness. It was her brother. He was some nine or ten years older, and
very different in character. His face was pale and thin--almost
ascetic--and he had the fiery and watery eyes of the devotee. He had
broken a blood-vessel and was threatened with consumption, but his case
was not considered dangerous. When Polly was about, his eyes would follow
her round the ward with something of the humble entreaty of a dog. It was
clear that he loved his sister, and was constantly thinking of her. But
she hardly ever looked in his direction, and when she spoke to him it was
in a cold or fretful voice.

John Storm had observed this. It had brought him close to the young man,
and the starved and silent heart had opened out to him. He was a
lay-brother in an Anglican Brotherhood that was settled in Bishopsgate
Street. His monastic name was Brother Paul. He had asked to be sent to
that hospital because his sister was a nurse there. She was his only
remaining relative. One other sister he had once had, but she was
gone--she was dead--she died---- But that was a sad and terrible story;
he did not like to talk of it.

To this broken and bankrupt creature John Storm found his footsteps
turning on that night when his own heart lay waste. But on entering the
ward he saw that Brother Paul had a visitor already. He was an elderly
man in a strange habit--a black cassock which buttoned close at the neck
and fell nearly to his feet, and was girded about the waist by a black
rope that had three great knots at its suspended ends. And the habit was
not more different from the habit of the world than the face of the
wearer was unlike the worldly face. It was a face full of spirituality, a
face that seemed to invest everything it looked upon with a holy peace--a
beautiful face, without guile or craft or passion, yet not without the
signs of internal strife at the temples and under the eyes; but the
battles with self had all been fought and won.

As John Storm stepped up, the old man rose from his chair by the
patient's bed.

"This is the Father Superior, sir," said Brother Paul.

"I've just been hearing of you," said the F