he man who tells us his sorrow a
stranger to us? Uniacke's creed taught him to be unselfish, taught him
to concern himself in the afflictions of others. Already he had sinned,
he had lied for this stricken man. He, a clergyman, had gone out in the
night and had defaced a grave. All this lay heavy on his heart. His
conscience smote him. And yet, when he saw before him in the night the
vision of this tortured man, he knew that he would repeat his sin if
necessary.

The next day was Sunday. He sat down and tried to think of the two
sermons he had to preach. The sea lay very still on the Sabbath morning,
still under a smooth and pathetic grey sky. The atmosphere seemed that
of a winter fairyland. All the sea-birds were in hiding. Small waves
licked the land like furtive tongues seeking some dainty food with sly
desire. Across the short sea-grass the island children wound from school
to church, and the island lads gathered in knots to say nothing. The
whistling of a naughty fisherman attending to his nets unsabbatically
pierced the still and magically cruel air with a painful sharpness.
People walked in silence without knowing why they did not care to speak.
And even the girls, discreet in ribbons and shining boots, thought less
of kisses than they generally did on Sunday. The older people, sober by
temperament, became sombre under the influence of sad, breathless sky,
and breathless waters. The coldness that lay in the bosom of nature soon
found its way to the responsive bosom of humanity. It chilled Uniacke in
the pulpit, Sir Graham in the pew below. The one preached without heart.
The other listened without emotion. All this was in the morning. But at
evening nature stirred in her repose and turned, with the abruptness of
a born coquette, to pageantry. A light wind got up. The waves were
curved and threw up thin showers of ivory spray playfully along the
rocks. The sense of fairyland, wrapped in ethereal silences, quivered
and broke like disturbed water. And the grey womb of the sky swelled in
the west to give up a sunset that became tragic in its crescendo of
glory. Bursting forth in flame--a narrow line of fire along the sea--it
pushed its way slowly up the sky. Against the tattered clouds a hidden
host thrust forth their spears of gold. And a wild-rose colour descended
upon the gentle sea and floated to the island, bathing the rocks, the
grim and weather-beaten houses, the stones of the churchyard, with a
radiance so d