“Yes; I am weary of this,” said Chris again.  “I stormed once at Ralph, and gained nothing.  We do not win by those weapons.  Where is Ralph?”

Nicholas knit his lips to keep in the fury that urged him.

“He is with Cromwell still,” he said venomously, “and very busy, I hear.  They will be making him a lord soon—­but there will be no lady.”

Chris had heard of Beatrice’s rejection of Ralph.

“He is still busy?”

“Why, yes; he worked long at this bill, I hear.”

Chris asked a few more questions, and learned that Ralph seemed fiercer than ever since the Visitation.  He was well-known at Court; had been seen riding with the King; and it was supposed that he was rising rapidly in favour every day.

“God help him!” sighed Chris.

The change that had come over Chris was very much marked.  Neither a life in the world would have done it, nor one in the peace of the cloister; but an alternation of the two.  He had been melted by the fire of the inner life, and braced by the external bitterness of adversity.  Ralph’s visit to the priory, culminating in the passionless salutation of him in the cloister as being a guest and therefore a representative of Christ, had ended that stage in the development of the monk’s character.  Chris was disappointed in his brother, fearful for him and stern in his attitude towards him; but he was not resentful.  He was sincere when he prayed God to help him.

When Nicholas had eaten and gone, carrying messages to Mary, Chris told the others, and there was a revival of hope in the house.

Then a few days later came the news of Anne’s death and of the marriage of the King with Jane Seymour on the following day.  At least Jane was a lawful wife and queen in the Catholics’ eyes, for Katharine too was dead.

* * * * *

Chris had now passed through the minor orders, the sub-diaconate and the diaconate, and was looking forward to priesthood.  It had been thought advisable by his superiors, in view of the troubled state of the times, to apply for the necessary dispensations, and they had been granted without difficulty.  So many monks who were not priests had been turned into the world resourceless, since they could not be appointed to benefices, that it was thought only fair to one who was already bound by vows of religion and sacred orders not to hold him back from an opportunity to make his living, should affairs be pushed further in the direction of dissolution.

He was looking forward with an extraordinary zeal to the crown of priesthood.  It seemed to him a possession that would compensate for all other losses.  If he could but make the Body of the Lord, lift It before the Throne, and hold It in his hands, all else was trifling.