The sub-prior had seated himself again, and with his strong hands meekly clasped he waited. He knew that something was passing which he could not understand: his dull instincts told him vaguely that between these two strong men there was war-fare, dumb, sullen, and merciless; but unused as he was to the ways of men, unlearned in the intricacies of human thoughts, he could not read more. “You have not told me yet, my father,” said Vellacott, “how long I have been ill.” “Six weeks, my son,” replied the taciturn monk. “And it was very bad?” “Yes, very bad.” Christian slowly rubbed his thin hands together. His fingers were moist and singularly white, with a bleached appearance about the knuckles. His face was thin, but not emaciated, his long jaw and somewhat pronounced chin were not more bony than of old, but the expression of his mouth was quite changed; his lips were no longer thrust upward with a determined curve, and a smile seemed nearer at hand. “I have a faint recollection of being very tenderly nursed and cared for; generally by you, I think. No doubt you saved my life.” The sub-prior moved a little, and drew in his feet. “The matter was not in my hands,” he said quietly. The Englishman, with some tact, allowed this remark to pass in acquiescent silence. “Did you ever think that ... I was not ... going back to England?” he asked presently, in a lighter tone, though the thought of returning home brought no smile to his face. The sub-prior did not reply at once. He appeared to be thinking deeply, for he leaned forward in an unmonastic attitude with his knees apart, his elbows resting upon them, and his hands clasped. He gazed across the prosaic potato-bed with his colourless lips slightly apart. “One night,” he began meditatively, “I went to sit with you after the bell for matins had been rung. From midnight till three o'clock you never moved. Then I gave you some cordial, and as I stooped over you the candle flickered a little; there were strange shadows upon your face, but around your lips there was a deeper shade. I had seen it once before, on my brother's face when he lay upon the hard Paris pavement with a bullet in his lungs, and his breath whistling through the orifice as the wind whistles round our walls in winter. I held the candle closer to your face, and as I did so, a hand came over my shoulder and took it from my fingers. The Father Provincial had come to help me. He said no word, but set the candle down upon the bed, and I held you up while he administered the cordial drop by drop, as a man oils a cartwheel.” “Ah!” said Christian slowly and suggestively, “_he_ was there!” The monk made no reply. He sat motionless, with a calm, acquired silence, which might have meant much or nothing. “Did he come often?” inquired the Englishman. “Very often.” “I never saw him.” This, again, was met with silence. Presently the sub-prior continued his narrative.