“We want you to make yourself perfectly at home, Mr. Craighill. The walks are fairly well cleared in the neighbourhood and the air is the finest on earth. We call this the House of Peace--no newspapers, mail once a week, and telegrams are almost unknown. We have the place for ourselves and our friends to rest in. You will find a schedule of the day’s events in your room but don’t let the religious offices disturb you. They go on all the time and it is not in the least necessary for you to attend them. Please be free to do as you like. You and Paddock are St. John’s boys--I’m one, too--five years ahead of you, though.” He led the way to a small bedroom on the second floor, whose windows framed at the moment the ruddy winter sunset. The room was severely simple, its woodwork white and scrupulously clean, the furniture limited to essentials. “The best thing about the room is the view,” observed Stoddard and in a moment he had gone, for it was the hour of vespers and the brothers were already assembling in the little chapel below. Wayne turned gloomily from the window. “Stung! Kidnapped and smuggled into a monastery! Well, Jimmy Paddock, you have your nerve! It’s all right with me, but how about that big fellow--what is he, the abbot?--if he knew what an outlaw had got into his joint he’d probably drop me into the valley down there. Are you going to leave me here alone with nothing to do but say my prayers?” “Sorry I’ve got to go, but I’m off to-night.” “So you’ve brought me here to lose me! How long am I in for?” “You can leave any time you want to and you can do as you please while you’re here, just as Stoddard told you.” “Thank you,” mocked Wayne. “I’m going to fool you by staying.” The novelty of his situation, the strangeness of the life of a religious house, and the quiet good fellowship of the men who gathered at the common table of the refectory, clad in their brown robes, interested Wayne in spite of himself. The brothers were all young graduates of American colleges, vigorous, manly fellows, who did not discuss religion to-night, but social and political questions just then before the world. Stoddard asked Paddock for an account of his own work at Ironstead and the minister described the general social conditions of Pittsburg, throwing out questions to bring Wayne into the talk.