"A poor service!" he said, turning his gaze away from her elfin figure and shining hair--"Unworthy,--shameful!--marred by sin at every moment! A priest of the Church must learn to do without happiness such as ordinary life can give--and without love,--such as woman may give--but--after all--the sacrifice is little." She smiled at him, sweetly--tenderly, "Very little!" she said--"So little that it is not worth a regret! Good-bye! But not for long! Come and see me soon!" Moving across the cloister with her light step she seemed to float through the sunshine like a part of it, and as she disappeared a kind of shadow fell, though no cloud obscured the sun. Don Aloysius watched her till she had vanished,--then turned aside into a small chapel opening out on the cloistered square--a chapel which formed part of the monastic house to which he belonged as Superior,--and there, within that still, incense-sweetened sanctuary, he knelt before the noble, pictured Head of the Man of Sorrows in silent confession and prayer. CHAPTER X Roger Seaton was a man of many philosophies. He had one for every day in the week, yet none wherewith to thoroughly satisfy himself. While still a mere lad he had taken to the study of science as a duck takes to water,--no new discovery or even suggestion of a new discovery missed his instant and close attention. His avidity for learning was insatiable,--his intense and insistent curiosity on all matters of chemistry gave a knife-like edge to the quality of his brain, making it sharp, brilliant and incisive. To him the ordinary social and political interests of the world were simply absurd. The idea that the greater majority of men should be created for no higher purpose than those of an insect, just to live, eat, breed, and die, was to him preposterous. "Think of it!" he would exclaim--"All this wondrous organisation of our planet for THAT! For a biped so stupid as to see nothing in his surroundings but conveniences for satisfying his stomach and his passions! We men are educated chiefly in order to learn how to make money, and all we can do with the money WHEN made, is to build houses to live in, eat as much as we want and more, and breed children to whom we leave all the stuff we have earned, and who either waste it or add to it, whichever suits their selfishness best. Such lives are absolutely useless,--they repeat the same old round, leading nowhere. Occasionally, in the course of centuries a real Brain is born--and at once, all who are merely Bodies leap up against it, like famished wolves, striving to tear it to pieces and devour it--if it survives the attack its worth is only recognised long after its owner has perished. The whole scheme is manifestly unintelligent and ludicrous, but it is not intended to be so--of that I am sure. THERE MUST BE SOMETHING ELSE!" When urged to explain what he conceived as this "something else," he would answer--