more than anything else that he had ever seen before or since in the
whole world.

The young man's eyes were open and his lips were closed. Not one muscle
of his face moved. So much for the physical facts. But it was a case
where the physical facts are supremely unimportant.... At any rate, the
priest could only recall them with an effort. The point was that there
was something supra-physical there--(personally I should call it
supernatural)--that stabbed the watcher's heart clean through with one
over whelming pang.... (I think that's enough.)

* * * * *

When the priest reached the Lady chapel he sat down, still trembling a
little, and threw all his attention into his ears, determined to hear
the first movement that the kneeling figure made behind him. So he sat
minute after minute. The Cathedral was full of echoes--murmurous
rebounds of the noises of the streets, drawn out and mellowed into long,
soft, rolling tones, against which, as against a foil, there stood out
detached, now and then, the sudden footsteps of someone leaving or
entering a confessional, the short scream of a slipping chair--once the
sudden noise of a confessional-door being opened and the click of the
handle which turned out the electric light. And it was full of shadows,
too; a monstrous outline crossed and recrossed the apse behind the High
Altar, as the sacristan moved about; once a hand, as of a giant,
remained poised for an instant somewhere on the wall beside the throne.
It seemed to the priest, tired and clear-brained as he was, as if he sat
in some place of expectation--some great cavern where mysteries moved
and passed in preparation for a climax. All was hushed and confused, yet
alive; and the dark waves would break presently in the glory of the
midnight Mass.

He scarcely knew what held him there, nor what it was for which he
waited. He thought of the lighted common-room at the end of the long
corridor beyond the sacristy. He wondered who was there; perhaps one or
two were playing billiards and smoking; they had had a hard day of it
and would scarcely get to bed before three. And yet, here he sat, tired
and over-strained, yet waiting--waiting for a disreputable-looking young
man in a dirty suit and muffler and big boots, to give over praying
before a curtain in an empty aisle.

A figure presently came softly round the corner behind him. It was the
priest whom he had heard leaving his confessional just