‘Very welcome,’ Father Oliver murmured.

‘I’m glad of that,’ the old man answered; ‘and now to my story.’  And he told how a variety of little incidents had come about, enabling him to spend his vacation in Ireland.  ’A holiday is necessary for every man.  And, after all, it is as easy to go from London to Ireland as it is to go to Margate, and much more agreeable.  But I believe you are unacquainted with London, and Margate is doubtless unknown to you.  Well, I don’t know that you’ve missed much;’ and he began to tell of the month he had spent wandering in the old country, and how full of memories he had found it—­all sorts of ideas and associations new and old.  ’Maybe it was you that beguiled me to Ireland; if so, I ought to thank you for a very pleasant month’s holiday.  Now I’m on my way home, and finding that I could fit in the railway journey I went to Tinnick, and I couldn’t go to Tinnick without driving over to Garranard.’

‘I should think not, indeed,’ Father Oliver answered quickly.  ’It was very good of you to think of me, to undertake the journey to Tinnick and the long drive from Tinnick over here.’

’One should never be praised for doing what is agreeable to one to do.  I liked you from your letters; you’re like your letters, Father Oliver—­at least I think you are.’

‘I’m certain you’re like yours,’ Father Oliver returned, ’only I imagined you to speak slower.’

‘A mumbling old man,’ Father O’Grady interjected.

‘You know I don’t mean that,’ Father Oliver replied, and there was a trace of emotion in his voice.

’It was really very good of you to drive over from Tinnick.  You say that you only undertook the journey because it pleased you to do so.  If that philosophy were accepted, there would be no difference between a good and an evil action; all would be attributed to selfishness.’  He was about to add:  ’This visit is a kindness that I did not expect, and one which I certainly did not deserve;’ but to speak these words would necessitate an apology for the rudeness he felt he was guilty of in his last letter, and the fact that he knew that Father O’Grady had come to talk to him about Nora increased his nervousness.  But their talk continued in commonplace and it seemed impossible to lift it out of the rut.  Father O’Grady complimented Father Oliver on his house and Oliver answered that it was Peter Conway that built it, and while praising its comfort, he enlarged on the improvements that had been made in the houses occupied by priests.

‘Yes, indeed,’ Father O’Grady answered, ’the average Irish priest lived in my time in a cottage not far removed from those the peasants lived in.  All the same, there was many a fine scholar among them.  Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Catullus, Cicero in the bookcases.  Do you ever turn to these books?  Do you like reading Latin?’

And Father Oliver replied that sometimes he took down his Virgil.  ’I look into them all sometimes,’ he added.