sort of nursing uniform, who told us that Mr. Payne
was expecting us. We asked anxiously how he was. "Oh, he is very cheerful,"
she said; "his nurse, Sister Jane, thinks he is the most amusing man she
ever saw. You must not worry about him. The operation is to be on
Friday--he seems very well and strong in himself, and we will soon have him
all right again--you will see! He is just the sort of man to make a good
recovery." Then she added, "Mr. Payne said he thought you would like to see
the doctor, so he is going to look in here in half an hour from now--he
will see Mr. Payne first, and then you can have a good talk to him. You are
going back this afternoon, I think?"

"That depends!" said Barthrop.

"Oh, Mr. Payne is expecting you to go back, I know--we will just run up and
see him now."

We went up two flights of stairs: the matron knocked at a door in the
passage, and we went in. Father Payne was sitting up in bed, in a sort of
blue wrapper which gave him, I thought, a curiously monastic air--he was
reading quietly. The room was large and airy, and looked out on the backs
of tall houses: it was quiet enough: there was just a far-off murmur of the
town in the air.

He greeted us with much animation, and smiled at me. "It's good of you to
come, I'm sure," he said, "with your feeling about ill people. I don't
object to that," he added in the familiar manner. "I think it's a sign of
health, you know!" We sat down beside him. "Now," said Father Payne, "don't
let's have any grave looks or hushed voices--you remember what Baines told
us, when he joined the Church of Rome, that when he got back after his
reception, his friends all spoke to him as if he had had a serious illness.
The matter is simple enough--and I'm going to speak plainly. I have got
some internal mischief, something that obstructs the passages, and it has
got to be removed. There's a risk, of course--they never can tell exactly
what they will find, but they don't think it has gone too far to be
remedied. I don't pretend to like it--in fact it's decidedly inconvenient.
I like my own little plans as well as anyone! and this time I don't seem
able to look ahead--there's a sort of wall ahead of me. I feel as if I had
come, like the boy in the _Water Babies_, to the place which was
called _Stop_!" He paused a moment and smiled on us, his big
good-natured smile.

"But if I put my head out of the other end of the tunnel, I shall go on as
usual. If I _don't_, t