Page:Twelve Years in a Monastery (1897).djvu/241

 the dignitary in question had not discharged any public function for some years, hence his disappearance was unnoticed. I elicited the fact with some difficulty, and was earnestly begged not to divulge it further. On another occasion, at Forest Gate, I was asked to accompany a canon who was giving a mission there at the time to a certain address in the district. Noticing an air of secrecy about the visit, and a desire on the part of the good canon that I should remain outside, I entered the house with him, and found that it was occupied by an 'apostate' priest. So much I learned by accident, but neither the canon nor my own colleagues would give me the slightest information about him. I never heard of him before or since, and know nothing of his character: I merely mention the incident as an illustration of the concealment of secessions.

And not only is silence enjoined, but deliberate falsehoods are told with regard to seceders. One of