Reflecting that he might as well get the interview over, Morris followed her at once to the Abbot's chamber, where the sick man lay.
Except for a single lamp near the bed, the place was unlighted, but by the fire, its glow falling on her white-draped form and pale, uncommon face, sat Stella.

As he entered she rose, and, coming forward, accompanied him to the bedside, saying, in an earnest voice: "Father, here is our host, Mr.Monk, the gentleman who saved my life at the risk of his own." The patient raised his bandaged head and stretched out a long thin hand; he could stir nothing else, for his right thigh was in splints beneath a coffer-like erection designed to keep the pressure of the blankets from his injured limb.
"Sir, I thank you," he said in a dry, staccato voice; "all the humanity that is lacking from the hearts of those rude wretches, the crew of the Trondhjem, must have found its home in you." Morris looked at the dark, quiet eyes that seemed to express much which the thin and impassive face refused to reveal; at the grey pointed beard and the yellowish skin of the outstretched arm.

Here before him, he felt, lay a man whose personality it was not easy to define, one who might be foolish, or might be able, but of whose character the leading note was reticence, inherent or acquired.

Then he took the hand, and said simply: "Pray, say no more about it.

I acted on an impulse and some wandering words of yours, with results for which I could not hope.