in John's memory.

On the following day John Storm dined with his uncle at Downing Street.
The Prime Minister was waiting in the library. In evening dress, with his
back to the fireplace and his hands enlaced behind him, he looked even
more thin and gaunt than before. He welcomed John with a few familiar
words and a smile. His smile was brief and difficult, like that which
drags across the face of an invalid. Dinner was announced immediately,
and the old man took the young one's arm and they passed into the
dining-room.

The panelled chamber looked cold and cheerless. It was lighted by a
single lamp in the middle of the table. They took their seats at opposite
sides. The statesman's thin hair shone on his head like streaks of
silver. John exercised a strong physical influence upon him, and all
through the dinner his bleak face kept smiling.

"I ought to apologize for having nobody to meet you, but I had something
to say--something to suggest--and I thought perhaps----"

John interrupted with affectionate protestations, and a tremor passed
over the wrinkles about the old man's eyes.

"It is a great happiness to me, my dear boy, that you have turned your
back on that Brotherhood, but I presume you intend to adhere to the
Church?"

John intended to take priest's orders without delay, and then go on with
his work as a clergyman.

"Just so, just so"--the long, tapering fingers drummed on the table--"and
I should like to do something to help you."

Then sipping at his wine-glass of water, the Prime Minister, in his slow,
deep voice and official tone, began to detail his scheme. There was a
bishopric vacant. It was only a colonial one--the Bishopric of Colombo.
The income was small, no more than seventeen hundred pounds, the work was
not light, and there were fifty clergy. Then a colonial bishopric was not
usually a stepping-stone to preferment at home, yet still----

John interrupted again. "You are most kind, uncle, but I am only looking
forward to living the life of a poor priest, out of sight of the world
and the Church."

"Surely Colombo is sufficiently out of sight, my boy?"

"But I see no necessity to leave London."

The Prime Minister glanced at him steadily, with the concentrated
expression of a man who is accustomed to penetrate the thoughts and
feelings of another.

"Why then--why did you----"

"Why did I leave the monastery, uncle? Because I had come to see that the
monastic system was based on a