“We gazed at each other, dark face to dark face, brown eyes to brown eyes. The monk's pale hands, my hands, were clenched. The monk's strong lips, my lips, were set. The two souls looked upon each other, there, in the dawn.
“And then at last he spoke in French, and with the beautiful voice I knew.
“‘Whence have you come?’ he said.
“‘From England, father.’
“‘From England? Then you live! you live. You are a man, as I am! And I have believed you to be a spirit, some strange spirit of myself, lost to my control, interrupting my prayers with your cries, interrupting my sleep with your desires. You are a man like myself?’
“He stretched out his hand and touched mine.
“‘Yes; it is indeed so,’ he murmured.
“‘And you,’ I said in my turn, ‘are no spirit. Yet, I, too, believed you to be a wraith of myself, interrupting my sins with your sorrow, interrupting my desires with your prayers. I have seen you. I have imagined you. And now I find you live. What does it mean? For we are as one and yet not as one.’
“‘We are as two halves of a strangely-mingled whole,’ he answered. ‘Do you know what you have done to me?’
“‘No, father.’