(He broke off again.) "Look out of
the window, please. Where are we?"

The other looked out. (He felt greatly elated and comforted. It
was quite true; his memory was not altogether gone then. Surely
he would soon be well again!) Out of the windows in front, but
seeming to wheel swiftly to the left as the car whisked round to
the right, was the Victoria Tower. He noticed that the hour
pointed to five minutes before one.

"Those are the Houses of Parliament," he said. "And what's that
tall pillar in the middle of Parliament Square?"

"That's the image of the Immaculate Conception. But what did you
call those buildings just now?"

"Houses of Parliament, aren't they?" faltered the man, terrified
that his brain was really going.

"Why do you call them that?"

"It is their name, isn't it?"

"It used to be; but it isn't the usual name now."

"Good God! Father, am I mad? Tell me. What year is it?"

The eyes looked again into his.

"Monsignor, think. Think hard."

"I don't know. . . . I don't know. . . . Oh, for God's sake! . . ."

"Quietly then. . . . It's the year nineteen hundred and
seventy-three."

"It can't be; it can't be," gasped the other. "Why, I remember
the beginning of the century."

"Monsignor, attend to me, please. . . . That's better. It's the
year nineteen hundred and seventy-three. You were born in the
year--in the year nineteen hundred and thirty-two. You are just
forty years old. You are secretary and chaplain to the
Cardinal--Cardinal Bellairs. Before that you were Rector of St.
Mary's in the West. . . . Do you remember now?"

"I remember nothing."

"You remember your ordination?"

"No. Once I remember saying Mass somewhere. I don't know where."

"Stay, we're just there." (The car wheeled in swiftly under an
archway, whisked to the left, and drew up before the cloister
door.) "Now, Monsignor, I'm going in to see the Prior myself and
give him the papers. You have them?"

"I. . . I don't know."

The priest dived forward and extracted a small despatch-box from
some unseen receptacle.

"Your keys, please, Monsignor."

The other felt wildly about his person. He saw the steady eyes of
the old priest upon him.

"You keep them in your left-hand breast pocket," said the priest
slowly and distinctly.

The man felt there, fetched out a bundle of thin, flat keys, and
handed them over helplessly. While the priest turned them over,
examining each, the other stared hopelessly out of the w