o travel before
he finds it. And now I have something to say. It has troubled me very
much that I was obliged to leave those Orofenans wandering in a kind of
religious twilight."

"You couldn't help that," said Bickley, "seeing that if you had stopped,
by now you would have been wandering in religious light."

"Still, I am not sure that I ought not to have stopped. I seem to have
deserted a field that was open to me. However, it can't be helped, since
it is certain that we could never find that island again, even if Oro
has not sunk it beneath the sea, as he is quite capable of doing, to
cover his tracks, so to speak. So I mean to do my best in another field
by way of atonement."

"You are not going to become a missionary?" I said.

"No, but with the consent of the Bishop, who, I think, believes that my
locum got on better in the parish than I do, as no doubt was the case,
I, too, have volunteered for the Front, and been accepted as a chaplain
of the 201st Division."

"Why, that's mine!" said Bickley.

"Is it? I am very glad, since now we shall be able to pursue our
pleasant arguments and to do our best to open each other's minds."

"You fellows are more fortunate than I am," I remarked. "I also
volunteered, but they wouldn't take me, even as a Tommy, although I
misstated my age. They told me, or at least a specialist whom I saw did
afterwards, that the blow I got on the head from that sorcerer's boy--"

"I know, I know!" broke in Bickley almost roughly. "Of course, things
might go wrong at any time. But with care you may live to old age."

"I am sorry to hear it," I said with a sigh, "at least I think I am.
Meanwhile, fortunately there is much that I can do at home; indeed a
course of action has been suggested to me by an old friend who is now in
authority."

Once more Bickley and Bastin in their war-stained uniforms were dining
at my table and on the very night of their return from the Front, which
was unexpected. Indeed Tommy nearly died of joy on hearing their voices
in the hall. They, who played a worthy part in the great struggle,
had much to tell me, and naturally their more recent experiences had
overlaid to some extent those which we shared in the mysterious island
of Orofena. Indeed we did not speak of these until, just as they were
going away, Bastin paused beneath a very beautiful portrait of my late
wife, the work of an artist famous for his power of bringing out the
inner character, or what s