"You are thinking of your loneliness," he said gravely.
"Yes," answered the Body.
For a time no word more was said.
"I am indeed alone." This I murmured to myself after a long while, and in a moment the old supreme wisdom sank, and we were not one but three.
"But you, O Soul," said the Will, "how can you be alone when in every hour you have the company of the invisible, and see the passage of powers and influence, of demons and angels, creatures of the triple universe, souls, and the pale flight of the unembodied?"
"I do not know loneliness because of what I see or do not see, but because of what I feel. When I walk here with you side by side it is as though I walked along a narrow shore between a fathomless sea and fathomless night."
The thought of one was the thought of three. I shivered with that great loneliness. The Body glanced sidelong at the Will, the Will at the Soul.
"It is not good to dwell upon that loneliness," said the last.
"To you, O Body, and to you, O Will, as to me, it is the signal of Him whom we have lost. Listen, and in the deepest hollow of loneliness we can hear the voice of the Shepherd."