inn."

He had turned round as his companion turned, and for an instant thought
he saw something moving behind the blind in Mr Sharnall's room. But he
must have been mistaken; only Anastasia was in the house, and she was in
the kitchen, for he had called to her as they went out to say that he
might be late for tea.

Westray thoroughly enjoyed the hour and a half which the light allowed
him for showing and explaining the church. Lord Blandamer exhibited
what is called, so often by euphemism, an intelligent interest in all
that he saw, and was at no pains either to conceal or display a very
adequate architectural knowledge. Westray wondered where he had
acquired it, though he asked no questions; but before the inspection was
ended he found himself unconsciously talking to his companion of
technical points, as to a professional equal and not to an amateur.
They stopped for a moment under the central tower.

"I feel especially grateful," Westray said, "for your generosity in
giving us a free hand for all fabric work, because we shall now be able
to tackle the tower. Nothing will ever induce me to believe that all is
right up there. The arches are extraordinarily wide and thin for their
date. You will laugh when I tell you that I sometimes think I hear them
crying for repair, and especially that one on the south with the jagged
crack in the wall above it. Now and then, when I am alone in the church
or the tower, I seem to catch their very words. `The arch never
sleeps,' they say; `we never sleep.'"

"It is a romantic idea," Lord Blandamer said. "Architecture is poetry
turned into stone, according to the old aphorism, and you, no doubt,
have something of the poet in you."

He glanced at the thin and rather bloodless face, and at the high
cheekbones of the water-drinker as he spoke. Lord Blandamer never made
jokes, and very seldom was known to laugh, yet if anyone but Westray had
been with him, they might have fancied that there was a whimsical tone
in his words, and a trace of amusement in the corners of his eyes. But
the architect did not see it, and coloured slightly as he went on:

"Well, perhaps you are right; I suppose architecture does inspire one.
The first verses I ever wrote, or the first, at least, that I ever had
printed, were on the Apse of Tewkesbury Abbey. They came out in the
_Gloucester Herald_, and I dare say I shall scribble something about
these arches some day."

"Do," said Lord Blandame