"Maurice rises like a phoenix from our ashes," said Guy grimly.
"He was always irrepressible," Michael agreed.
"And still you haven't answered my question about your monkery," Guy persisted.
"You want action. I want contemplation. But don't think that I'm going to take final vows to-morrow."
"And do you really believe in the Christian religion?" Guy asked incredulously.
"Yes, I really do."
"What an extraordinary thing!"
Next day they parted, Michael going to the Benedictine house at Cava, Guy pressing on toward Salerno. With every breath of the rosemary, with every sough of the Aleppo pines, with every murmur of the blue Tyrrhenian winking far below, more and more sharply did he realize that what he had thought at the time was wonderful relief had been more truly despair. Yet in a happier September might he not hope to come back this way, setting his face toward England?
One more turn of the head in the gathering gloom
To watch her figure in the lighted door:
One more wish that I never should turn again,
But watch her standing there for evermore.