Canon Nicholls had always been of opinion that the secular clergy in England were more hardly treated than the regulars.  They were expected to have the absolute detachment of monks, without the support that a Religious Order gives to its subjects.  They were given the standards of the cloister in the seminary, and then tumbled out into life in the world.  No one in authority seemed anxious not to discourage a young secular priest.  To be regular and punctual, to avoid rows, and to keep out of debt were the virtues that naturally appealed to the approval of a harassed bishop.  But a zeal that put a man forward and brought him into public notice was likely to be troublesome, and such men were seldom very good at accounts.  The type of young man which Mark resembled, according to the priests who discussed the question, was not a popular one among them.  As a type it had not been found to wash well.

Canon Nicholls was not popular among them for other reasons, but chiefly because of a biting tongue.  He would let his talk flow without tact or diplomacy on these questions, and often did far more harm than good, in consequence.  He fairly stormed to one or two of his visitors at the absurdity of hiding a man away because of unjust slander.  It was the very moment in which he ought to be brought forward and supported in every way.  The fact was that the man was to be sacrificed to the supposed good of the Church, only no one would say so candidly.  Whereas, in reality, by justice to the man the Church would be saved from a scandal!

Mark was outwardly very calm, but he was changed.  His friends said that his vitality and earnestness were bound to suffer in the struggle for self-repression.  His sermons were becoming mechanical tasks and the confessional a weariness.  He made his protest, as Canon Nicholls wished, but after the talk with his rector he knew it was useless.  He wrapped himself in silence, even with Father Jack Marny.  He began, half consciously, to be more self-indulgent in details and the only subject on which he ever showed animation was a projected holiday in Switzerland.  He once alluded to the possibility of going to Groombridge for the shooting.

At first he had not allowed Father Marny to take any of his now painful work among the people he was so soon to leave, but, after a week or two, he acquiesced.  What was the use when he was to leave them for good and all?  It were better they should learn at once to get on without him.  Father Marny, in passionate sympathy, was ready to work himself to death and acknowledge no fatigue.  It was easy to conceal fatigue or anything else from Mark in his preoccupied state of mind.  He showed no interest when Lord Lofton wrote him a most warmly and tactfully expressed letter of welcome, in which he told the coming chaplain that he must not suppose there was not work in plenty to be done for souls in the country.

“Humbugging old men and women who want pensions and soup and blankets!” Mark said with unusual irritation, as he flung the letter to his friend.