“To the good Father’s, then, with all my heart,” answered Gaston heartily; and the little troop moved onwards until, to the astonishment of the simple villagers clustered round the little church and their cure’s house, the small but brilliant cavalcade of armed travellers drew up before that lowly door.

The Father was within, and, as the sound of trampling feet made itself heard, appeared at his door in some astonishment; but when the two youths sprang from their horses and bent the knee before him, begging his blessing, and he recognized in them the two boys who had filled so great a portion of his life not so many years ago, a mist came before his eyes, and his voice faltered as he gave the benediction, whilst raising them afterwards and tenderly embracing them, he led them within the well-known doorway, at the same time calling his servant and bidding him see to the lodging of the men without.

The low-ceiled parlour of the priest, with its scanty plenishing and rush-strewn floor, was well known to the boys; yet as Raymond stepped across the threshold he uttered a cry of surprise, not at any change in the aspect of the room itself, but at sight of a figure seated in a high-backed chair, with the full sunlight shining upon the calm, thin face.  With an exclamation of joyful recognition the lad sped forward and threw himself upon his knees before the erect figure, with the name of Father Paul upon his lips.

The keen, austere face did not soften as Father Anselm’s had done.  The Cistercian monk, true to the severity of his order, permitted nothing of pleasure to appear in his face as he looked at the youth whose character he had done so much to form.  He did not even raise his hand at once in the customary salutation or blessing, but fixed his eyes upon Raymond’s face, now lifted to his in questioning surprise; and not until he had studied that face with great intentness for many long minutes did he lay his hand upon the lad’s head and say, in a low, deep voice, “Peace be with thee, my son.”

This second and most unexpected meeting was almost a greater pleasure to Raymond than the one with Father Anselm.  Whilst Gaston engrossed his old friend’s time and thought, sitting next him at the board, and pacing at his side afterwards in the little garden in which he loved to spend his leisure moments, Raymond remained seated at the feet of Father Paul, listening with breathless interest to his history of the voyage he had taken to the far East (as it then seemed), and to the strange and terrible sights he had witnessed in some of those far-off lands.

Raymond had vaguely heard before of the plague, but had regarded it as a scourge confined exclusively to the fervid heat of far-off countries —­ a thing that would never come to the more temperate latitudes of the north; but when he spoke these words to the monk, Father Paul shook his head, and a sudden sombre light leaped into his eyes.