he priest. "The later
watches are arranged."

"It is understood," I said, after a pause.

And the priest departed, charged with my compliments to the Lord
Bishop.

I had a horror of the duty which had been thrust upon me. It went
against not merely my inclinations but my instincts. However, there
was only one thing to do, and of course I did it.

At five minutes to twelve I was knocking at the north door of the
cathedral. A sacristan, who carried in his hand a long lighted taper,
admitted me at once. Save for this taper and four candles which stood
at the four corners of the bier, the vast interior was in darkness.

The sacristan silently pointed to the chancel, and I walked
hesitatingly across the gloomy intervening space, my footsteps echoing
formidably in the silence. Two young priests stood, one at either side
of the lofty bier. One of them bowed to me, and I took his place. He
disappeared into the ambulatory. The other priest was praying for the
dead, a slight frown on his narrow white brow. His back was
half-turned towards the corpse, and he did not seem to notice me in
any way.

I folded my arms, and as some relief from the uncanny and troublous
thoughts which ran in my head I looked about me. I could not bring
myself to gaze on the purple cloth which covered the remains of
Alresca. We were alone--the priest, Alresca, and I--and I felt afraid.
In vain I glanced round, in order to reassure myself, at the
stained-glass windows, now illumined by September starlight, at the
beautiful carving of the choir-stalls, at the ugly rococo screen. I
was afraid, and there was no disguising my fear.

Suddenly the clock chimes of the belfry rang forth with startling
resonance, and twelve o'clock struck upon the stillness. Then followed
upon the bells a solemn and funereal melody.

"How comes that?" I asked the priest, without stopping to consider
whether I had the right to speak during my vigil.

"It is the carilloneur," my fellow watcher said, interrupting his
whispered and sibilant devotions, and turning to me, as it seemed,
unwillingly. "Have you not heard it before? Every evening since the
death he has played it at midnight in memory of Alresca." Then he
resumed his office.

The minutes passed, or rather crawled by, and, if anything, my
uneasiness increased. I suffered all the anxieties and tremors which
those suffer who pass wakeful nights, imagining every conceivable ill,
and victimized by the most dreadful f