"I knew you would have finished your Spartan dinner by this time," he said, "but I hope I am not spoiling your evening."
"You ought to know that I have nothing better to do with my evening than to talk with anybody who wants me," answered the priest in the low, grave voice that was like the sound of Hollmann's bow in an adagio passage, "and I think you must want me, or you would not come to this house a third time. What have you been doing since six o'clock? You look horribly fagged."
"I have been to Hampstead. It is a fine night, and I wanted a walk."
"You have walked too far. You are ill, Claude."
"A little under the weather. The modern complaint, neuritis, and its concomitant, insomnia."
"You ought to go to one of my neighbours in Harley Street."
"No. I want you—the physician of souls. This corporal frame of mine will mend itself when I get out of London; a thousand miles or so. Do you remember the night we walked home together from Portland Place? You pressed me very hard that evening. You tried to bring me back to the fold—but the time had not come."
"And now the time has come?" questioned the priest, pushing aside the book that he had been reading, and bending forward to look into a page of human life, bringing his searching eyes nearer to the haggard face in front of him.
"Yes, the time has come."
"What is the matter?"