"Oh, I am very happy, Brother Mark. I should say Mr. Mark. The Reverend Father has told me that I'm to be clothed as a novice on Wednesday. All last week when we sung, '_The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared unto Simon_,' I knew something wonderful was going to happen. That's what made me so anxious when Brother Anselm didn't answer my knock." The train left the station, and the three ex-novices settled themselves to face the world. They were all glad that Brother Simon at least was happy amid so much unhappiness. CHAPTER XXX THE NEW BISHOP OF SILCHESTER The Rector of Wych thought that Mark's wisest plan if he wished to be ordained was to write and ask the Bishop of Silchester for an interview. "The Bishop of Silchester?" Mark exclaimed. "But he's the last bishop I should expect to help me." "On the contrary," said the Rector, "you have lived in his diocese for more than five years, and if you repair to another bishop, he will certainly wonder why you didn't go first to the Bishop of Silchester." "But I don't suppose that the Bishop of Silchester is likely to help me," Mark objected. "He wasn't so much enamoured of Rowley as all that, and I don't gather that he has much affection or admiration for Burrowes." "That's not the point; the point is that you have devoted yourself to the religious life, both informally and formally, in his diocese. You have shown that you possess some capacity for sticking to it, and I fancy that you will find the Bishop less unsympathetic than you expect." However, Mark was not given an opportunity to put the Bishop of Silchester's good-will to the test, for no sooner had he made up his mind to write to him than the news came that he was seriously ill, so seriously ill that he was not expected to live, which in fact turned out a true prognostication, for on the Feast of St. Philip and St. James the prelate died in his Castle of High Thorpe. He was succeeded by the Bishop of Warwick, much to Mark's pleasure and surprise, for the new Bishop was an old friend of Father Rowley and a High Churchman, one who might lend a kindly ear to Mark's ambition. Father Rowley had been in the United States for nearly two years, where he had been treated with much sympathy and where he had collected enough money to pay off the debt upon the new St. Agnes'. He had arrived home about a week before Mark left Malford, and in answer to Mark he wrote immediately to Dr. Oliphant, the new Bishop of Silchester, to enlist his interest. Early in June Mark received a cordial letter inviting him to visit the Bishop at High Thorpe.