“I never thought,” he said to me at last, “to go light-heartedly away—­and yet I can do even that!  I have heard something, I can hardly say what, which tells me to go forward, not to hanker, not to look back—­and which tells me best of all that it would be almost like treachery to wish the Father back again.  It is better so!  I say this,” he went on, “not with resignation, not with a mild desire to make the best of a bad business, but with a serene certainty that it is not a bad business at all.  I cannot tell where it is gone, the cloud that has oppressed me—­but it is gone, and it will not come back.”

“Yes,” I said, “I recognise that—­I feel it too; our work here is done, and we have work waiting for us.  We shall meet, we shall compare experiences, we shall love our fate.  Life is to be a new quest, not an old worship.  That is to be our loyalty to Father Payne, that we are to believe in life, and not only to believe in memory.”

It was soon over.  Barthrop was to go later, and he came out to see me go.  Just before I started, the old clock played its sweet tune; we stood in silence listening.  “That is the best of omens,” I said, “to depart with thanksgiving and the voice of melody.”  He smiled in my face, we clasped hands; I drove up the little road, while he stood at the door, smiling and waving his hand, till I turned into the main road, between the blossoming hedges, and saw Aveley no more.