in the church? No, no; two hours,
three hours, all will be the same to me. I have breakfasted, I am not at
all cold, with many thanks to monsieur."

"Very well, my little man," quoth Dennistoun to himself: "you have been
warned, and you must take the consequences."

Before the expiration of the two hours, the stalls, the enormous
dilapidated organ, the choir-screen of Bishop John de Mauleon, the
remnants of glass and tapestry, and the objects in the treasure-chamber,
had been well and truly examined; the sacristan still keeping at
Dennistoun's heels, and every now and then whipping round as if he had
been stung, when one or other of the strange noises that trouble a
large empty building fell on his ear. Curious noises they were
sometimes.

"Once," Dennistoun said to me, "I could have sworn I heard a thin
metallic voice laughing high up in the tower. I darted an inquiring
glance at my sacristan. He was white to the lips. 'It is he--that is--it
is no one; the door is locked,' was all he said, and we looked at each
other for a full minute."

Another little incident puzzled Dennistoun a good deal. He was examining
a large dark picture that hangs behind the altar, one of a series
illustrating the miracles of St. Bertrand. The composition of the
picture is well-nigh indecipherable, but there is a Latin legend below,
which runs thus:

"Qualiter S. Bertrandus liberavit hominem quem
diabolus diu volebat strangulare." (How St.
Bertrand delivered a man whom the Devil long
sought to strangle.)

Dennistoun was turning to the sacristan with a smile and a jocular
remark of some sort on his lips, but he was confounded to see the old
man on his knees, gazing at the picture with the eye of a suppliant in
agony, his hands tightly clasped, and a rain of tears on his cheeks.
Dennistoun naturally pretended to have noticed nothing, but the question
would not away from him, "Why should a daub of this kind affect any one
so strongly?" He seemed to himself to be getting some sort of clue to
the reason of the strange look that had been puzzling him all the day:
the man must be monomaniac; but what was his monomania?

It was nearly five o'clock; the short day was drawing in, and the church
began to fill with shadows, while the curious noises--the muffled
footfalls and distant talking voices that had been perceptible all
day--seemed, no doubt because of the fading light and the consequently
quicken