the fact. True, Angela had mechanically
groped for a protecting touch. Nevertheless, she was aware of Nick's hand
on hers, and glad of it, with a gladness made up of several conflicting
feelings: such as surprise, some slight shame, and defiance of that shame.
She was afraid of the rustling in the dark, which might mean a lurking
thief, a man half murdered, or one of a dozen things each more unpleasant
than the other. Yet she half liked being afraid in the dark, with Nick
Hilliard to reassure her, though she would have hated it with Billy. No
unknown horror she could conjure up would have made her want to touch
Billy. She was almost sorry when Nick found his matches and together they
began moving about the church, she keeping a little behind.

The last match but one lit up something white that stirred beside the
altar; and as the flame died down, leaving only a red glowing point, a
pair of eyes like two points of fire stared up from the floor.

"Oh!" murmured Angela, and clutched Nick's coat sleeve, like a girl of
early Victorian days. But, after all, women have not changed in
essentials. They are much the same now in the dark, when pale things stir
or shine unexpectedly; and they are still glad to have with them at such
times a man, preferably a handsome man, they happen to like better than
any other.

"Great Scot, it's an owl!" said Nick, profiting by the last match of all.
It was, or appeared to be, a white owl; and it seemed to him for a second
or two as if the witch-bird of the Grapevine man at Los Angeles had come
to give the advice it had refused. But this was a childish idea, he knew!
The owl was a plain, ordinary owl, which no doubt lived in the
neighbourhood of San Miguel, and had flopped in, perhaps in search of the
proverbial church mouse. It was afraid of the other intruders, and afraid
of the match, so afraid that it flapped its wings and hooted dismally. It
hooted three times, which, if it had been the witch fortune-teller, might
really have meant something, though there was no time just then to think
what. Nick was somewhat alarmed lest, in its anger and fear, it should
dash at Angela's face, but she would not let him strike the creature with
his hat.

"No, poor thing, it's worse off than we are, because it's alone, and we're
together," she said. "We'll go, and leave it in peace now we know what it
is." And she kept beside Nick in the dark by holding daintily to his coat
sleeve.

He found the steps