“Hullo, padre,” said his friend, the ghost of a smile beginning about his lips.  “Where have you been?  Marie!  By Jove!  I shall have to report you to the A.C.G.”

Peter blushed furiously.  “It was at an inn,” he said, “this morning, as we were coming back from the forest.  But she seemed so much better then, Mackay knew her; why, I heard him say....”

He glanced back at the sudden recollection.  The two girls were speaking to the two others, twenty paces or so behind.  “Oh,” he exclaimed, “look here!...”

The tall Labour man slipped his arm in his and interrupted.  “Come on, padre,” he said; “you can’t do anything.  Mackay’s had a bit too much as it is, and the other chap is looking for a night out.  We’ll stroll past the cathedral, and I’ll see you a bit of the way home.”

“But how damnable, how beastly!” exclaimed Peter.  “It makes one sick!...”  He broke off, and the two walked on in silence.

“Is there much of that?” Peter demanded suddenly.

The other glanced at him.  “You’ll find out without my telling you,” he said; “but don’t be too vehement till you’ve got your eyes open.  There are worse things.”

“There can’t be,” broke in Peter.  “Women like that, and men who will go with them, aren’t fit to be called men and women.  There’s no excuse.  It’s bestial, that’s what it is.”

“You wouldn’t speak to one?” queried the other.

“Good heavens, no!  Do you forget what I am?”

“No, I don’t, padre, but look here, I’m not a Christian, and I take a common-sense view of these things, but I’m bound to say I think you’re on the wrong tack, too.  Didn’t Christ have compassion on people like that?  Didn’t He eat and drink with publicans and sinners?”

“Yes, to convert them.  You can’t name the two things in the same breath.  He had compassion on the multitude of hungry women and children and misguided men, but He hated sin.  You can’t deny that.”  Peter recalled his sermon; he was rather indignant, unreasonably, that the suggestion should have been made.

“So?” said the other laconically.  “Well, you know more about it than I do, I suppose.  Come on; we go down here.”

They parted at the corner by the river again, and Peter set out for his long walk home alone.  It was a lovely evening of stars, cool, but not too cold, and at first the streets were full of people.  He kept to the curb or walked in the road till he was out of the town, taking salutes automatically, his thoughts far away.  The little cafes debits were crowded, largely by Tommies.  He was not accosted again, for he walked fast, but he saw enough as he went.

More than an hour later he swung into camp, and went to his room, lit a candle, and shut the door.  Tunic off, he sat on the edge of the camp-bed and stared at the light.  He seemed to have lived a year in a day, and he felt unclean.  He thought of Hilda, and then actually smiled, for Hilda and this life seemed so incredibly far apart.  He could not conceive of her even knowing of its existence.  Yet, he supposed, she knew, as he had done, that such things were.  He had even preached about them....  It suddenly struck him that he had talked rot in the pulpit, talked of things of which he knew nothing.  Yet, of course, his attitude had been right.