"Well, what do you want of me now?"
"Open the door of my cell, the Benedictines, the Carthusians, La Trappe—in France or Spain, any order where the rule is iron, and where my days will be short. I have lived the sinner's life, and it has not brought me happiness. Let me live the saint's life, and see if it can bring me peace. I am not a much blacker sinner than some of the fathers of your Church who wear the aureole. Let the rest of my life be one long act of expiation, one dark night of penitential prayer."
"My dear Claude, my son, all shall be done for you. The path of peace shall be made smooth; but this time there must be no turning back."
"To what should I come back? The light of my life has gone out."
EPILOGUE
A month later, when Christmas was over, and the people who had done with their guns, and did not mean hunting, were making a little season in London on their way to Egypt or the Riviera, Lady Susan Amphlett as Chorus was in her best form at cosy dinners.
"Now will you believe that Claude Rutherford was a devoted husband, and that he broke his heart when his wife died?" she asked triumphantly.
"I believe that he was nearly as much of a crank as his pretty wife. She was a disciple of Francis Symeon, and he was under Father Hammond's thumb. The dark room in the Albany, or a cell in La Trappe! There's not much difference."