It was inevitable that these announcements should generate in the Council an unmonkish excitement. After having been so long persuaded that they would live the rest of their lives and die their due deaths within the same square mile of earth, there was something strangely fascinating in this sudden unrolling of the map of Europe. The solid sorrow of their dispossession was almost hidden for the moment under a whirl and flutter of little arrangements; even as a fatal reef is hidden under the pretty spray of the rollers it has smashed to glittering atoms. The buzz of talk which followed on the more formal speaking was not without the shrill note of schoolboys as they discuss a thousand plans for an approaching holiday. The Cellarer who, despite his preoccupation with its temporals, was one of the community's most spiritually-minded members, swiftly detected the danger. "Father Prior," he said loudly, "all have spoken save Father Antonio." His bright firm voice cut through the dull buzz like an eagle dashing through starlings, scattering them all in flight. Every monk felt the just rebuke, and once more there was silence. "Father Antonio," said the Prior, quietly and kindly. Antonio felt that he could not speak from his place by the wall. He rose and advanced with bowed head into the midst of his brethren. The corn-merchant's tiny candles were flickering down into their sockets; and he waited a few moments in the hope that darkness might enveil him before he opened his mouth. But the lights leaped into fuller brightness. He raised his head. Everywhere he saw eyes, eyes--old eyes and young eyes, loving eyes and stern eyes, dull eyes and eager eyes, hopeful eyes and fearful eyes--everywhere eyes, eyes fixed on him, Antonio, alone. "Father Prior--" he began. But his prepared words were taken away. The eyes went on piercing him until he felt like the holy martyr Sebastian in the midst of the sharp arrows. At last words burst from him. "My Fathers, my Brethren," he cried. "Forgive me. To-morrow I am going back into the world." One of the lights went out suddenly, as if Antonio's apostasy had struck it down like a blow. But for five or six seconds no one stirred or spoke. A second candle-flame leaped up and died away. Then, in the dimness, uprose a confused murmuring, sharpened here and there by exclamations of scorn or anger or bitter sorrow. More distinctly than the rest was heard the garrulous contempt of Father Bernardo, whose lapses into the sin of gluttony had so often scandalized the brethren. Father Bernardo's righteous scorn was sincere. He had no vocation to be a saint or a hero himself; but he knew that saints and heroes were necessary, and he despised Antonio for turning his back upon the light.