orebodings. Through it all I was
conscious of the cold of the stone floor penetrating my boots and
chilling my feet....

The third quarter after one struck, and I began to congratulate myself
that the ordeal by the bier was coming to an end. I looked with a sort
of bravado into the dark, shadowed distances of the fane, and smiled
at my nameless trepidations. And then, as my glance sought to
penetrate the gloom of the great western porch, I grew aware that a
man stood there. I wished to call the attention of the priest to this
man, but I could not--I could not.

He came very quietly out of the porch, and walked with hushed
footfall up the nave; he mounted the five steps to the chancel; he
approached us; he stood at the foot of the bier; he was within a yard
of me. The priest had his back to him. The man seemed to ignore me; he
looked fixedly at the bier. But I knew him. I knew that fine, hard,
haughty face, that stiff bearing, that implacable eye. It was the man
whom I had seen standing under the trees opposite the Devonshire
Mansion in London.

For a few moments his countenance showed no emotion. Then the features
broke into an expression of indescribable malice. With gestures of
demoniac triumph he mocked the solemnity of the bier, and showered
upon it every scornful indignity that the human face can convey.

I admit that I was spellbound with astonishment and horror. I ought to
have seized the author of the infamous sacrilege--I ought, at any
rate, to have called to the priest--but I could do neither. I trembled
before this mysterious man. My frame literally shook. I knew what fear
was. I was a coward.

At length he turned away, casting at me as he did so one indefinable
look, and with slow dignity passed again down the length of the nave
and disappeared. Then, and not till then, I found my voice and my
courage. I pulled the priest by the sleeve of his cassock.

"Some one has just been in the cathedral," I said huskily. And I told
him what I had seen.

"Impossible! Retro me, Sathanas! It was imagination."

His tone was dry, harsh.

"No, no," I said eagerly. "I assure you...."

He smiled incredulously, and repeated the word "Imagination!"

But I well knew that it was not imagination, that I had actually seen
this man enter and go forth.

CHAPTER VIII

THE MESSAGE

When I returned to Alresca's house--or rather, I should say, to my own
house--after the moving and picturesque ceremony of the fun