Now—­in this moment of revelation—­how clearly he could see the figure of the famous priest, in brown habit, cloak, and hood, a cord at his waist, with tonsured head, full brown beard, and sandalled feet, pacing the great hall, standing in the armoury, or climbing the Cumberland hills to visit the chapel of the Holy Mount and the hermit who dwelt beside it.

As is the way with childhood’s memories, the smallest, most trivial details leapt up vivid, crystal clear.  The present was forgotten, the future disregarded, in the sudden intimate dearness of that long-ago past.

The Bishop allowed time for this realisation.  Then he spoke.

“True, the ship foundered, Hugh; true, none who sailed in her were seen again.  And, if I tell you that one swimmer, after long buffeting, was flung up on a rocky coast, lay for many weeks sick unto death in a fisherman’s humble cot, rose at last the frail shadow of his former self, to find that his hair had turned white in that desperate night, to find that none knew his name nor his estate, that—­leaving Father Gervaise and his failures at the bottom of the ocean—­he could shave his beard, and make his way to Rome under any name he pleased; if I tell you all this, I trust you with a secret, Hugh, known to one other only, during all these years—­His Holiness, the Pope.”

“Father!” exclaimed the Knight, with deep emotion; “Father”—­ Then, his voice broke.  He dropped on one knee in front of the Bishop, and clasped the bands stretched out to him.

What strange thing had happened?  One, greatly loved and long mourned, had risen from the dead; yet she who had best loved and most mourned him, had herself passed to the Realm of Shadows, and was not here to wonder and to rejoice.

“Father,” said Hugh, when he could trust his voice, “in her last words to me, my mother spoke of you.  I went to her chamber to bid her sleep well, and together we knelt before the crucifix.  ‘Let us repeat,’ whispered my mother, ’those holy words of comfort which Father Gervaise ever bid his penitents to say, as they kneeled before the dying Redeemer.’  ‘Mother,’ said I, ‘I know them not.’  ’Thou wert so young, my son,’ she said, ‘when Father Gervaise last was with us.’  ’Tell me the words,’ I said; ‘I should like well to have them from thy lips.’  So, lifting her eyes to the dead Christ, my mother said, with awe and reverence in her voice and a deep gladness on her face:  ‘He—­ever—­liveth—­to make intercession for us.’  And, in the dawn of the new day, her spirit passed.”

The Bishop laid his hand upon the Knight’s bowed head.  “My son,” he said, “of all the women I have known, thy gentle mother bore the most beautiful and saintly character.  I would there were more such as she, in our British homes.”