t is his hour, and the power of darkness, as it has
been to-day."

I got up and left him; he smiled at me and waved his hand.

LXXI

THE BANK OF THE RIVER

The week passed without anything further occurring to arouse our anxieties,
and Father Payne went up to town on the Monday: he went off in apparently
good spirits: but we got a wire in the course of the day to say that he was
detained in town by business and would write. On the following morning,
Barthrop came into my room in silence, shortly after breakfast, and handed
me a letter without a word. It was very short: it ran as follows:

"DEAR LEONARD,--_I want you to come up to town to-morrow to see
me, and if Duncan cares to come, I shall be delighted to see him
too, though I know he has an artistic objection to seeing people
who are ill, and I understand that I am ill. I saw a doctor
yesterday, and he advised me to see a specialist, who advised me
to have an operation. It seems better to get it over at once; so
I went without delay into a nursing home, where I feel like a
child in the nursery again. I want to talk over matters, and it
will be better to say nothing which will cause a fuss. So just
run up to-morrow, there's a good man, and you can get back in the
evening. Ever yours,_

"C.P."

It happened that there were only two of us at Aveley at the time, Kaye, and
a younger man, Raven, who had just joined. We determined to say nothing
about it till the following morning: the day passed heavily enough. I found
I could do nothing with the dread of what it might all mean overhanging me.
I admired Barthrop's common-sense: he spent the day, he told me, in doing
accounts--he acted as a sort of bursar--and he kept up a quiet conversation
at dinner in which I confess I played a very poor part. Kaye never noticed
anything, and had no curiosity, and Raven had no suspicion of anything
unusual. I slept ill that night, and found myself in a very much depressed
mood on the following morning. I realised at every moment how entirely
everything at Aveley was centred upon Father Payne, and how he was both in
the foreground as well as in the background of all that we did or thought.
Our journey passed almost in silence, and we drove straight to the nursing
home in Mayfair. We were admitted to a little waiting-room in a bright,
fresh-looking house, and were presently greeted by a genial and motherly
old lady, dressed in a