“And I’ll take me oaf,” Dennis muttered pettishly, “he’s T.T. into the bargain. What an old bee!”

Father Jourdain’s brother-priest had helped him to bestow his modest possessions about his room. This done, they had looked at each other with the hesitant and slightly self-conscious manner of men who are about to take leave of each other.

“Well—” they both said together and Father Jourdain added, “It was good of you to come all this way. I’ve been glad of your company.”

“Have you?” his colleague rejoined. “And I, needless to say, of yours.” He hid his hands under his cloak and stood modestly before Father Jourdain. “The bus leaves at eleven,” he said. “You’d like to settle down, I expect.”

Father Jourdain asked, smiling, “Is there something you want to say to me?”

“Nothing of the smallest consequence. It’s just — well, I’ve suddenly realized how very much it’s meant to me having the great benefit of your example.”

“My dear man!”

“No, really! You strike me, Father, as being quite tremendously sufficient (under God and our rule, of course) to yourself. All the brothers are a little in awe of you, did you know? I think we all feel that we know much less about you than we do about each other. Father Bernard said the other day that although ours is not a silent order you kept your own rule of spiritual silence.”

“I don’t know that I am altogether delighted by Father Bernhard’s aphorism.”

“Aren’t you? He meant it awfully nicely. But I really do chatter much too much. I should take myself in hand and do something about it, I expect. Good-bye, Father. God bless you.”

“And you, my dear fellow. But I’ll walk with you to the bus.”

“No — please—”

“I should like to.”

They found their way down to the lower deck. Father Jourdain said a word to the sailor at the head of the gangway and both priests went ashore. The sailor watched them pace along the wharf towards the passageway at the far end of which the bus waited. In their black cloaks and hats they looked fantastic. The fog swirled about them as they walked. Half an hour had gone by before Father Jourdain returned alone. It was then a quarter past eleven.