upon it.

"Does it not bear all the appearance of having been defaced?" said Sir
Graham in his ear.

Uniacke shook his head.

"The Skipper would have it so," he murmured, full of a heavy sense of
useless contest against the determination of something hidden that all
should be known to his companion, perhaps even that very night.

They waited, as mourners wait beside a tomb. As the moon rose, the
churchyard grew more distinct. The surrounding graves came into view,
the crude bulk of the rectory, the outline of the church tower, and the
long wall of the churchyard. On the white faces of the two men the light
fell pitilessly, revealing the strained and anxious expression of
Uniacke, the staring watchfulness of the painter. The minutes ran by.
Uniacke shivered slightly in the wind. By degrees he began to lose the
expectation of seeing any apparition. Presently he even sneered silently
at himself for his folly in having ever entertained it. Nevertheless he
was strongly affected by the nearness of the wonder-child's grave, from
which seemed to emanate an influence definite and searching, and--so he
felt--increasingly hostile, either to himself or to the artist. It came
up like a thing that threatened. It crept near like a thing that would
destroy. Uniacke wondered whether Sir Graham was conscious of it. But
the painter said nothing, and the clergyman dared not ask him. At
length, however, his fanciful sense of this dead power, speaking as it
were from the ground under his feet, became so intolerable to him that
he was resolved to go; and he was about to tell Sir Graham of his
intention when the painter suddenly caught his arm in a tight grip.

"There it is," he whispered.

He was staring before him over the grave. Uniacke followed his eyes. He
saw the short grass stirring faintly in the night wind. He thought it
looked like hair bristling, and his hair moved on his head. He saw the
churchyard in a maze of moon-rays. And with the moonlight had come many
shadows. But not one of them was deceptive. Not one took the form of any
spectre. Nevertheless Uniacke recoiled from this little grave at his
feet, for it seemed to him as if the power that had been sleeping there
stirred, forsook its recumbent position, rose up warily, intent on
coming forth to confront him.

"You see it?" whispered Sir Graham, still keeping hold of his arm.

"No, no I see nothing; there is nothing. It's your fancy, your
imagination that plays tricks