sing her head.

It was almost quite dark when they reached the other side of the high
altar. Griggs walked beside her in silence, trying to understand the
meaning of what she had said.

The gloom was terrible. The enormous statues loomed faintly like vast
ghosts, high up, between the floor and the roof, their whiteness
glimmering where there seemed to be nothing else but darkness below them
and above them. A low, far sound that was a voice but not a word,
trembled in the air. Francesca shuddered.

"They have not gone yet," said Griggs. "They are still talking. But we
must hurry."

"No," said Francesca, "that was not any one talking." And her teeth
chattered. "Give me your arm, please--I am frightened."

He held out his arm till she could feel it in the dark, and she took it.
He pressed her hand to his side and drew her along, for he feared that
the doors might be already shut.

"Not so fast! Oh, not so fast, please!" she cried. "I shall fall. They
do not shut the doors--"

"Yes, they do! Let me carry you. I can run with you in the dark--there
is no time to be lost!"

"No, no! I can walk faster--but there is really no danger--"

It is a very long way from the high altar to the main entrance of the
church. Francesca was breathless when they reached the door and Griggs
lifted the heavy leathern curtain. If the door had been still open, he
would have seen the twilight from the porch at once. Instead, all was
black and close and smelled of leather. Francesca was holding his
sleeve, afraid of losing him.

"It is too late," he said quietly. "We are probably locked in. We will
try the door of the Sacristy."

He seized her arm and hurried her along into the south aisle. He struck
his shoulder violently against the base of the pillar he passed in the
darkness, but he did not stop. Almost instinctively he found the door,
for he could not see it. Even the hideous skeleton which supports a
black marble drapery above it was not visible in the gloom. He found the
bevelled edge of the smoothly polished panel and pushed. But it would
not yield.

"We are locked in," he said, in the same quiet tone as before.

Francesca uttered a low cry of terror and then was silent.

"Cannot you break the door?" she asked suddenly.

"No," he answered. "Nothing short of a battering-ram could move it."

"Try," she said. "You are so strong--the lock might give way."

To satisfy her he braced himself and heaved against the panel with al