hich is of her very
essence. If you saw that, you would be content."

"I suppose so," said the other hesitatingly.

The monk rose abruptly.

"We have talked enough for to-day," he said. "You will kindly
spend the rest of the day as yesterday. Do not say Mass in the
morning. I will be with you at the same time."

(VII)

It was on the last morning of their stay at Thurles that
Monsignor had an opportunity of seeing something of the real
character of the place.

The lay monk came to him again, as he was finishing breakfast,
and abruptly suggested it.

"I shall be very happy," said Monsignor.

* * * * *

Certainly his stay had done him good in some indefinable manner
which he could not altogether understand. Each morning he had
talked; but there was no particular argument which he could
recall that had convinced him. Indeed, the monk had told him more
than once that bare intellectual argument could do nothing except
clear the ground of actual fallacies. Certainly the points had
been put to him clearly and logically. He perceived now that, so
far as reason was concerned, Christian society could not do
otherwise than silence those who attacked the very foundations of
its existence; and he also understood that this was completely
another matter from the charge that men had been accustomed to
bring against the Church, that she "would persecute if she had
the power." For it was not the Church in any sense that used
repression; it was the State that did so; and as Dom Adrian had
pointed out, this was of the very essence of all civil
government. But this was not new to him. Rather his stay in
Thurles had, by quieting his nervous system, made it possible for
him to elect to follow his reason rather than his feelings. His
feelings were as before. Still in the bottom of his consciousness
he felt that the Christ which he had known was other than the
Christ who now reigned on earth. But now he had been enabled to
make the decision over which he had previously hesitated; he had
sufficiently recovered at least so far as to go back to his work
and to do what seemed to be the duty to which his reason pointed,
and in action at least to ignore his feelings. This much had been
done. He did not yet understand by what means.

* * * * *

A car waited in the little court to which the two came down. The
monk beckoned him to enter, and they moved off.

"This quarter of the monastery," began the monk abru