We shook hands quite impassively as if we had
parted yesterday. He talked in a rambling way as we walked towards my
hotel, of the singing of the nuns, of the numerous religious processions,
of the blessed doctrine of the intercession of saints. The old melodious
voice was unchanged, but it was pitched in the singularly low key which
I have noticed some foreign priests acquire who live much in churches.
I gather that he has become a Catholic. I do not know what intangible
instinct, or it may be fear, prevented me from putting to him the vital
question which has so perplexed me. It is astonishing how his face has
changed, what an extraordinary restlessness his speech and eye have
acquired. It never was so of old. My first impression was that he was
suffering from some acute form of nervous disorder, but before I left him
a more unpleasant suspicion was gradually forced upon me. I cannot help
thinking that there is more than a touch of insanity in my old friend. I
tried from time to time to bring him down to personal topics, but he eluded
them dexterously, and it was only for a moment or so that I could keep him
away from the all absorbing subject of the Catholic Church, which seems in
some of its more sombre aspects to exercise an extraordinary fascination
over him.
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