Again he looked on me as if puzzled; then his face cleared as he said,
"Yea, forsooth, and that is what the Church meaneth by death, and even
that I look for; and that hereafter I shall see all the deeds that I
have done in the body, and what they really were, and what shall come
of them; and ever shall I be a member of the Church, and that is the
Fellowship; then, even as now."

I sighed as he spoke; then I said, "Yea, somewhat in this fashion have
most of men thought, since no man that is can conceive of not being;
and I mind me that in those stories of the old Danes, their common
word for a man dying is to say, 'He changed his life.'"

"And so deemest thou?"

I shook my head and said nothing.

"What hast thou to say hereon?" said he, "for there seemeth something
betwixt us twain as it were a wall that parteth us."

"This," said I, "that though I die and end, yet mankind yet liveth,
therefore I end not, since I am a man; and even so thou deemest, good
friend; or at the least even so thou doest, since now thou art ready
to die in grief and torment rather than be unfaithful to the
Fellowship, yea rather than fail to work thine utmost for it; whereas,
as thou thyself saidst at the cross, with a few words spoken and a
little huddling-up of the truth, with a few pennies paid, and a few
masses sung, thou mightest have had a good place on this earth and in
that heaven. And as thou doest, so now doth many a poor man unnamed
and unknown, and shall do while the world lasteth: and they that do
less than this, fail because of fear, and are ashamed of their