All at once the life
of this cloister appeared before him in a wider and nobler aspect.
In the silent monks bent over their desks he saw much more than
piety and learning. They rose to a dignity surpassing that of consul
or praefect. With their pens they warred against the powers of
darkness, a grander conflict than any in which men drew sword. He
wished he could talk of this with his cousin Decius, for Decius knew
so much more than he, and could look so much deeper into the sense
of things.
Days passed. Not yet did he receive a summons to the abbot's tower.
Rapidly recovering strength, he worked long in the fields, and
scrupulously performed his penitential exercises. Only, when he had
finished his daily reading of the appointed psalms, he turned to
that which begins: 'Blessed is every one that feareth the Lord, that
walketh in His ways.' How could he err in dwelling upon the word of
God? One day, as he closed the book, his heart was so full of a
strange, half-hopeful, half-fearful longing, that it overflowed in
tears; and amid his weeping came a memory of Marcian, a tender
memory of the days of their friendship: for the first time he
bewailed the dead man as one whom he had dearly loved.
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