ought of
that imagined companion of mine. If he were with me now, surely he would
feel that he had led me to his home at length. Surely he would secretly
long to remain here.

"I smiled, as I said to myself--'Monk, to-morrow, if, indeed, you are
fated to be my eternal attendant, you must come with me from this cold
station of the cross down into the sunshine, where the blood of men is
hot, where passions sing among the vineyards, where the battle is not of
souls but of flowers. To-morrow you must come with me. But to-night be
at peace!'

"And I smiled to myself again as I fancied that my visionary companion
was glad.

"Then I went down into the refectory.

"That night, before I retired to my room of the four beds, I asked if I
might go into the chapel of the monastery. My request was granted. I
shall never forget the curious sensation which overtook me as my guide
led me down some steps past a dim, little, old, painted window set in
the wall, to the chapel. That there should be a church here, that the
deep tones of an organ should ever sound among these rocks and clouds,
that the Host should be elevated and the censer swung, and litanies and
masses be chanted amid these everlasting snows, all this was wonderful
and quickening to me. When we reached the chapel, I begged my kind guide
to leave me for a while. I longed to meditate alone. He left me, and
instinctively I sank down upon my knees.

"I could just hear the keening of the wind outside. A dim light
glimmered near the altar, and in one of the oaken stalls I saw a bent
form praying. I knelt a long time. I did not pray. At first I scarcely
thought definitely. Only, I received into my heart the strange,
indelible impression of this wonderful place; and, as I knelt, my eyes
were ever upon that dark praying figure near to me. By degrees I
imagined that a wave of sympathy flowed from it to me, that in this
monk's devotions my name was not forgotten.

"'What absurd tricks our imaginations can play us!' you will say.

"I grew to believe that he prayed for me, there, under the dim light
from the tall tapers.

"What blessing did he ask on me? I could not tell; but I longed that his
prayer might be granted.

"And then, Bernard, at last he rose. He lifted his face from his hands
and stood up. Something in his figure seemed so strangely familiar to
me, so strangely that, on a sudden, I longed, I craved to see his face.

"He seemed about to retreat through a side do