journalistic post. "Now what do you say," said Vincent, "to us two trying
to go there for a bit? You can try it, I believe, without pledging
yourself, for two or three months; and then if Father Payne approves, and
you want to go on, you can regularly join."

I confess that it seemed to me a very attractive affair, and all that
Vincent told me of the place, and particularly of Father Payne, attracted
me. Vincent said that he had mentioned me to Barthrop, and that Barthrop
had said that I might have a chance of getting in. It appeared that we
should have to go down to the place to be interviewed.

We made up our minds to apply, and that night Vincent wrote to Barthrop.
The answer was favourable. Two days later Vincent received a note from
Father Payne, written in a big, finely-formed hand, to the effect that he
would be glad to see Vincent any night that he could come down, and that I
might also arrange an interview, if I wished, but that we were to come
separately. "Mind," said the letter, "I can make no promises and can give
no reasons; but I will not keep either of you waiting."

Vincent went first. He spent a night at Aveley Hall, as the place was
called. I continued my visit to his people, and awaited his return with
great interest.

He told me what had happened. He had been met at the station by an odd
little trap, had driven up to the house--a biggish place, close to a small
church, on the outskirts of a tiny village. It was dark when he arrived,
and he had found Father Payne at tea with four or five men, in a flagged
hall. There had been a good deal of talk and laughter. "He is a big man,
Father Payne, with a beard, dressed rather badly, like a country squire,
very good-natured and talkative. Everyone seemed to say pretty much what
they liked, but he kept them in order, too, I could see that!" Then he had
been carried off to a little study and questioned. "He simply turned me
inside out," said Vincent, "and I told him all my biography, and everything
I had ever done and thought of. He didn't seem to look at me much, but I
felt he was overhauling me somehow. Then I went and read in a sort of
library, and then we had dinner--just the same business. Then the men
mostly disappeared, and Barthrop carried me off for a talk, and told me a
lot about everything. Then I went to my room, a big, ugly, comfortable
bedroom; and in the morning there was breakfast, where people dropped in,
read papers or letters, did not talk