In those years when Father Oswald was thus teaching his novices gentleness and compassion, he had but one trouble in his life, and that was the remembrance of a companion of his youth, who had fled from the Priory and disappeared in the noise and tumult of the world's life.  As scholars they had been class-mates, and as novices they had been so closely drawn together that each had pledged to the other that whoever died first should, under God's permission, appear to the one still left alive, and reveal to his friend all that may be told of the state of the departed.  Now hardly had they been professed monks more than a year when this brother broke his vows and deserted his habit, and fled away under cloud of night.  Oswald had never forgotten his friend, and had never ceased to grieve and pray for him.  It was the great hope and desire of his heart that, having at last proved the vanity of all that the world can give, this Lost Brother would one day return, like the Prodigal Son, to the house of his boyhood.