r? You've forgotten
some paper, I suppose."

"No, Master."

"What then?"

By the faint greenish light the Master missed to observe that Mr.
Simeon's face was deadly pale.

"Master, I have come to make confession--to throw myself on your
mercy! For a long time--for a year almost--I have been living
dishonestly. . . . Master, do you believe in miracles?"

For a moment there was no answer. Master Blanchminster walked back
to an electric button beside the door, and turned on more light with
a finger that trembled slightly.

"If you have been living dishonestly, Simeon, I certainly shall
believe in miracles."

"But I mean _real_ miracles, Master."

"You are agitated, Simeon. Take a seat and tell me your trouble in
your own way--beginning, if you please, with the miracle."

"It was that which brought me. Until it happened I could not find
courage--"

Mr. Simeon's eyes wandered to this side and that, as though they
still sought a last chance of escape.

"The facts, if you please?"

The Master's voice had of a sudden become cold, even stern.
He flung the words much as one dashes a cupful of water in the face
of an hysterical woman. They brought Mr. Simeon to himself.
His gaze shivered and fixed itself on the Master's, as in a
compass-box you may see the needle tremble to magnetic north.
He gripped the arms of his chair, caught his voice, and went on
desperately.

"This afternoon it was. . . . On my way here I went around, as I go
daily, by the Cathedral, to hear if the workmen have found any fresh
defects. . . . They had opened a new pit by the south-east corner,
a few yards from the first, and as I came by one of the men was
levering away with a crowbar at a large stone not far below the
surface. I waited while he worked it loose, and then, lifting it
with both hands, he flung it on to the edge of the pit. . . .
By the shape we knew it at once for an old gravestone that, falling
down long ago, had somehow sunk and been covered by the turf.
There was lettering, too, upon the undermost side when the man turned
it over. He scraped the earth away with the flat of his hands, and
together we made out what was written."

Mr. Simeon fumbled in his waistcoat, drew forth a scrap of paper, and
handed it to the Master.

"I copied it down then and there: no, not at once. At first I looked
up, afraid to see the whole building falling, falling upon me--"

The Master did not hear. He had unfolded the paper.