smiled seraphically, and winked casually as he sipped his port.
"We will call it, if you please--a penance."

John threw himself in an agony of remorse and shame at the feet of
the Superior. "It isn't of myself I'm thinking," he confessed
wildly, "but of that poor young man, Brother Bones, in the next
cell to mine. He is a living skeleton, has got only one lung and
an atrophied brain. A night out might do him good."

The Father Superior frowned. "Do you know who he is?"

"No."

"His real name is Jones. Why do you start? You have heard it
before?"

John had started, thinking of Jinny Jones, Golly's deserted and
self-immolated friend.

"It is an uncommon name," he stammered--"for a monastery, I mean."

"He is or was an uncommon man!" said the Superior gravely. "But,"
he added resignedly, "we cannot pick and choose our company here.
Most of us have done something and have our own reasons for this
retreat. Brother Polygamus escaped here from the persecutions of
his sixth wife. Even I," continued the Superior with a gentle
smile, putting his feet comfortably on the mantelpiece, "have had
my little fling, and the dear boys used to say--ahem!--but this is
mere worldly vanity. You alone, my dear son, he went on with
slight severity, "seem to be wanting in some criminality, or--shall