dents that he could not lecture without that piece of chalk to fumble
in his fingers, and once he had been stricken to impotence by their hiding
his supply. He came and looked under his grey eyebrows at the rising tiers
of young fresh faces, and spoke with his accustomed studied commonness of
phrasing.

"Circumstances have arisen--circumstances beyond my control," he said, and
paused, "which will debar me from completing the course I had designed.
It would seem, gentlemen, if I may put the thing clearly and briefly,
that--Man has lived in vain."

The students glanced at one another. Had they heard aright? Mad? Raised
eyebrows and grinning lips there were, but one or two faces remained
intent upon his calm grey-fringed face. "It will be interesting," he was
saying, "to devote this morning to an exposition, so far as I can make it
clear to you, of the calculations that have led me to this conclusion. Let
us assume----"

He turned towards the blackboard, meditating a diagram in the way that was
usual to him. "What was that about 'lived in vain'?" whispered one student
to another. "Listen," said the other, nodding towards the lecturer.

And presently they began to understand.

* * * * *

That night the star rose later, for its proper eastward motion had carried
it some way across Leo towards Virgo, and its brightness was so great that
the sky became a luminous blue as it rose, and every star was hidden in
its turn, save only Jupiter near the zenith, Capella, Aldebaran, Sirius,
and the pointers of the Bear. It was very white and beautiful. In many
parts of the world that night a pallid halo encircled it about. It was
perceptibly larger; in the clear refractive sky of the tropics it seemed
as if it were nearly a quarter the size of the moon. The frost was still
on the ground in England, but the world was as brightly lit as if it were
midsummer moonlight. One could see to read quite ordinary print by that
cold, clear light, and in the cities the lamps burnt yellow and wan.

And everywhere the world was awake that night, and throughout Christendom
a sombre murmur hung in the keen air over the country-side like the
belling of bees in the heather, and this murmurous tumult grew to a
clangour in the cities. It was the tolling of the bells in a million
belfry towers and steeples, summoning the people to sleep no more, to sin
no more, but to gather in their churches and pray. And overhead, growin