"Father Gervaise, my lord, perished in a stormy sea.

The ship foundered, and none who sailed in her were seen again." The Knight spoke with conviction; yet, even as he spoke, the amazing truth rushed in upon him, and struck him dumb.

Of a sudden he knew why the Bishop's eyes had instantly won his fearless confidence.

A trusted friend of his childhood had looked out at him from their dear depths.
Often he had searched his memory, since the Bishop had claimed knowledge of him in his boyhood, and had marvelled that no recollection of Symon as a guest in his parents' home came back to him.
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.