prise. After a few more objections which were
disposed of by Mark, Hacking agreed to go next door and try to get the
prisoner into the garden. He succeeded in this, and Mark rated Cyril for
not having given him the sovereign yesterday.

"However, bunk in and get it now, because I shan't see you again till
to-morrow at the station, and I must have some money to buy the
tickets."

He explained the details of the escape and exacted from Cyril a promise
not to back out at the last moment.

"You've got nothing to do. It's as simple as A B C. It's too simple,
really, to be much of a rag. However, as it isn't a rag, but serious, I
suppose we oughtn't to grumble. Now, you are coming, aren't you?"

Cyril promised that nothing but physical force should prevent him.

"If you funk, don't forget that you'll have betrayed your faith and
. . ."

At this moment Mark in his enthusiasm slipped off the wall, and after
uttering one more solemn injunction against backing out at the last
minute he left Cyril to the protection of Angels for the next
twenty-four hours.

Although he would never have admitted as much, Mark was rather
astonished when Cyril actually did present himself at Slowbridge station
in time to catch the 5.47 train up to town. Their compartment was not
empty, so that Mark was unable to give Cyril that lesson in serving at
the altar which he had intended to give him. Instead, as Cyril seemed in
his reaction to the excitement of the escape likely to burst into tears
at any moment, he drew for him a vivid picture of the enjoyable life to
which the train was taking him.

"Father Dorward says that the country round Green Lanes is ripping. And
his church is Norman. I expect he'll make you his ceremonarius. You're
an awfully lucky chap, you know. He says that next Corpus Christi, he's
going to have Mass on the village green. Nobody will know where you
are, and I daresay later on you can become a hermit. You might become a
saint. The last English saint to be canonized was St. Thomas Cantilupe
of Hereford. But of course Charles the First ought to have been properly
canonized. By the time you die I should think we should have got back
canonization in the English Church, and if I'm alive then I'll propose
your canonization. St. Cyril Pomeroy you'd be."

Such were the bright colours in which Mark painted Cyril's future; when
he had watched him wave his farewells from the window of the departing
train at Waterloo, he felt as