unaccountable reason, darkened. After a
slight pause, and more by way of politeness than because he wished to
continue the subject, he said quietly--

"It was a flourishing school in those days, of course. Afterwards, I
have heard--" He shrugged his shoulders slightly, and the odd look--it
almost seemed a look of alarm--came back into his eyes. The sentence
remained unfinished.

Something in the tone of the man seemed to his listener uncalled for--in
a sense reproachful, singular. Harris bridled in spite of himself.

"It has changed?" he asked. "I can hardly believe--"

"You have not heard, then?" observed the priest gently, making a gesture
as though to cross himself, yet not actually completing it. "You have
not heard what happened there before it was abandoned--?"

It was very childish, of course, and perhaps he was overtired and
overwrought in some way, but the words and manner of the little priest
seemed to him so offensive--so disproportionately offensive--that he
hardly noticed the concluding sentence. He recalled the old bitterness
and the old antagonism, and for a moment he almost lost his temper.

"Nonsense," he interrupted with a forced laugh, "_Unsinn_! You must
forgive me, sir, for contradicting you. But I was a pupil there myself.
I was at school there. There was no place like it. I cannot believe that
anything serious could have happened to--to take away its character. The
devotion of the Brothers would be difficult to equal anywhere--"

He broke off suddenly, realising that his voice had been raised unduly
and that the man at the far end of the table might understand German;
and at the same moment he looked up and saw that this individual's eyes
were fixed upon his face intently. They were peculiarly bright. Also
they were rather wonderful eyes, and the way they met his own served in
some way he could not understand to convey both a reproach and a
warning. The whole face of the stranger, indeed, made a vivid impression
upon him, for it was a face, he now noticed for the first time, in whose
presence one would not willingly have said or done anything unworthy.
Harris could not explain to himself how it was he had not become
conscious sooner of its presence.

But he could have bitten off his tongue for having so far forgotten
himself. The little priest lapsed into silence. Only once he said,
looking up and speaking in a low voice that was not intended to be
overheard, but that evidently _was_ overh