It was the rule of the house that all the inmates should preserve
unbroken silence among themselves from complines until after nones the
next day. Maurice knew therefore that he was free from intrusion of
human companionship, which it seemed to him he could not have borne.
Even the talk of dear old Phil, to a chat with whom he had looked
forward as the one pleasure in coming back to the Clergy House, would
have been intolerable while this nightmarish trouble lay upon him. He
went at once to his chamber, a cell-like room, and sat down to think.
Could he do it? How would Berenice regard this impertinent interference
with her private affairs? How could he go to her and say: "It is
necessary for church politics that you assume to dispose of the
property which now your cousin holds, and over which you have no rights
until she is in her grave." He could see her eyes sparkle with
indignation and contempt, and he grew hot in anticipation. He could not
do it, he thought over and over. It was impossible that in this age of
the world anybody should dream of having such a thing done. If he were
almost a priest, he told himself fiercely, he had not yet ceased to be
a gentleman!

The stricture which this thought seemed to cast upon the priesthood
made him pause. He had not yet shaken off the dominion of old ideas and
old habits. He apologized to an unseen censor for the apparent
irreverence of his thought. It was not the priesthood, it was--He came
again to a standstill. He was not prepared to own to himself that he
disapproved of the Father Superior. He had vowed obedience, and here he
sat raging against a decree because it sacrificed his personal feelings
to the good of the church. The blame should be upon himself. There was
nothing in all this revolt except his own selfishness and wounded
vanity. He had transgressed by allowing his thoughts to be entangled in