Mr.Carleton had been, as he said, in the novitiate at Canterbury for a few months, and was able to tell him a good deal about the life there; but the differences between the Augustinians and the Cluniacs made it impossible for him to go with any minuteness into the life of the Priory at Lewes.

He warned him, however, of the tendency that every soul found in silence to think itself different from others, and of so peculiar a constitution that ordinary rules did not apply to it.

He laid so much stress on this that the other was astonished.
"But it is true," said Chris, "no two souls are the same." The priest smiled.
"Yes, that is true, too; no two sheep are the same, but the sheep nature is one, and you will have to learn that for yourself.

A Religious rule is drawn up for many, not for one; and each must learn to conform himself.

It was through that I failed myself; I remembered that I was different from others, and forgot that I was the same." Mr.Carleton seemed to take a kind of melancholy pleasure in returning to what he considered his own failure, and Chris began to wonder whether the thought of it was not the secret of that slight indication to moroseness that he had noticed in him.
The moon was high and clear by now, and Chris often leaned his cheek on the sash as the priest talked, and watched that steady shining shield go up the sky, and the familiar view of lawns and water and trees, ghostly and mystical now in the pale light.
The Court was silent as he passed through it near midnight, as the household had been long in bed; the flaring link had been extinguished two hours before, and the shadows of the tall chimneys lay black and precise at his feet across the great whiteness on the western side of the yard.