image.

"What's going on?" whispered Monsignor, as he glanced up first on
this side and that, at the array of heads that listened, and then
at the two figures that occupied the stage.

"It's a doctor lecturing on a cure. This goes on nearly all day.
We must get round to the back somehow."

As they passed in at last from the outside through the private
door through which the doctors and privileged persons had access
behind the stage, they heard a storm of clapping and voices from
the direction of the public hall on their right.

"That's finished then. Follow me, Monsignor."

They went through a passage or two, after their guide--a young
man in uniform--seeing as they went, through half-open doors here
and there, quite white rooms, glimpses of men in white, and once
at least a litter being set down; and came at last into what
looked like some kind of committee-room, lighted by tall windows
on the left, with a wide horseshoe table behind which sat perhaps
a dozen men, each wearing on his left breast the red and white
cross which marked them as experts. Opposite the examiners, but
half hidden from the two priests by the back of his tall chair,
sat the figure of a man.

Their guide went up to the end of the table, and almost
immediately they saw Father Adrian stand up and beckon to them.

"I've kept you two chairs," he whispered when they came up. "And
you'd better wear these crosses. They'll admit you anywhere." (He
pointed to the two red and white badges that hung over the backs
of their chairs.)

"Are we in time?"

"You're a little late," whispered the monk. Then he turned again
towards the patient, a typical fair-haired, bearded Russian with
closed eyes, who at that moment was answering some question put
to him by the presiding doctor in the centre.

The monk turned again.

"Can you understand Russian?"

Monsignor shook his head.

"Well, I'll tell you afterwards," said the other.

* * * * *

It seemed very strange to be sitting here, in this quiet room,
after the rush and push of the enormous crowds through which they
had made their way this morning. The air of the room was
exceedingly business-like, and not in the least even suggestive
of religion, except in the matter of a single statue of Our Lady
of Lourdes on a bracket on the wall above the President's head.
And these dozen men who sat here seemed quietly business-like
too. They sat here, men of various ages and nationalities, all in