He put his hands on Gard's bowed head, and there was a long silence. Then Gard stammered something, and presently--somehow--got away and stood in the corridor alone. His eyes were full of blinding tears, and yet there was a sense of wild relief. The interview was over, and he had never seen the Superior so mild, so politely talkative. The parting with the rest of the brotherhood was more of an ordeal. Brothers Andrew and Francis kissed his cheek and turned away. It seemed to him they looked suddenly old, and gray, and broken. The cold, white corridor was full of ghosts of his own past hours and days staring reproachfully. He passed out through the cloister court, carrying his little bundle under his arm. The asphalt was wet with the mist. Francis's flower-bed had only a few crooked, brown, uncannily-shaped stalks, like dry mummies' hands thrust through the mould and clutching blindly. He opened the door in the brick wall of the court. The hinge was worn and the gate had been sagging lately. It grated as he closed it behind him. Chapter VII Introducing Moselle and Mavering It was yet early in the afternoon. There was a hint of the sun overhead, a semi-luminous space in the thin mist, though the pavements were still wet. The two opposite currents of flowing humanity on the avenue mingled and jostled and dodged, with haste and with leisure, with good-humor and petulance. The avenue as far as Trinity, and Gard in his black robe, knew each other very well. The policeman had nodded to him kindly for years, and of late had taken to touching his helmet. The avenue did not appear to see anything peculiar about him now, but it came to him with a shock, so that he knew of a certainty that the relations between them were quite changed. The policeman touched his helmet, the man at the newspaper booth his hat, but that was a mistake. Properly, he ought to stop and tell them it was a mistake, that he had put off consecration, declined reverence, and cast his lot with them and the avenue's democracy. The sexton of Trinity was sweeping the steps. He took off his cap when Gard stopped to ask him where Moselle lived. "Two streets up, riverence," he said, "an' turn to your left; number sixty-siven, on'y it's rubbed out, riverence. Is it a bit o' music you're carryin', sor?" Gard found where sixty-seven was rubbed out on a street door, and under direction climbed three narrow flights, to a narrow, top-story hall, with a skylight overhead and several doors, one with the grimy card of Fritz Moselle tacked upon it. He knocked. "_Herein!_ Come! Veil, _du lieber Himmel_! It's de lil' anchorite!"