“What’s been going on?  What was all that crowd about?”

Still the eyes were on him, compelling and penetrating.

“You have been presiding at the usual midday Saturday sermon in Hyde Park, on behalf of the Missions to the East.  Do you remember now?  No!  Well, it doesn’t matter in the least.  That was Father Anthony who was preaching.  He was a little nervous, you noticed.  It was his first sermon in Hyde Park.”

“I saw he was a friar,” murmured the other.

“Oh! you recognized his habit then?  There, you see; your memory’s not really gone.  And . . . and what’s the answer to Dominus vobiscum?”

“Et cum spiritu tuo.”

The priest smiled, and the pressure on the man’s arm relaxed.

“That’s excellent.  It’s only a partial obscurity.  Why didn’t you understand me when I spoke to you in Latin then?”

“That was Latin?  I thought so.  But you spoke too fast; and I’m not accustomed to speak it.”

The old man looked at him with grave humour.  “Not accustomed to speak it, Monsignor!  Why——­” (He broke off again.) “Look out of the window, please.  Where are we?”

The other looked out. (He felt greatly elated and comforted.  It was quite true; his memory was not altogether gone then.  Surely he would soon be well again!) Out of the windows in front, but seeming to wheel swiftly to the left as the car whisked round to the right, was the Victoria Tower.  He noticed that the hour pointed to five minutes before one.

“Those are the Houses of Parliament,” he said.  “And what’s that tall pillar in the middle of Parliament Square?”

“That’s the image of the Immaculate Conception.  But what did you call those buildings just now?”

“Houses of Parliament, aren’t they?” faltered the man, terrified that his brain was really going.

“Why do you call them that?”

“It is their name, isn’t it?”

“It used to be; but it isn’t the usual name now.”

“Good God!  Father, am I mad?  Tell me.  What year is it?”

The eyes looked again into his.

“Monsignor, think.  Think hard.”

“I don’t know. . . .  I don’t know. . . .  Oh, for God’s sake! . . .”

“Quietly then. . . .  It’s the year nineteen hundred and seventy-three.”

“It can’t be; it can’t be,” gasped the other.  “Why, I remember the beginning of the century.”

“Monsignor, attend to me, please. . . .  That’s better.  It’s the year nineteen hundred and seventy-three.  You were born in the year—­in the year nineteen hundred and thirty-two.  You are just forty years old.  You are secretary and chaplain to the Cardinal—­Cardinal Bellairs.  Before that you were Rector of St. Mary’s in the West. . . .  Do you remember now?”

“I remember nothing.”

“You remember your ordination?”

“No.  Once I remember saying Mass somewhere.  I don’t know where.”