with a pedal-point. Here you
are, you see--a tonic pedal-point, this D flat, the very last raised
note in my new pedal-board, held down right through." And he set his
left foot on the pedal. "What do you think of _that_ for a
_Magnificat_?" he said, when it was finished; and Westray was ready with
all the conventional expressions of admiration. "It is not bad, is it?"
Mr Sharnall asked; "but the gem of it is the _Gloria_--not real fugue,
but fugal, with a pedal-point. Did you catch the effect of that point?
I will keep the note down by itself for a second, so that you may get
thoroughly hold of it, and then play the _Gloria_ again."

He held down the D flat, and the open pipe went booming and throbbing
through the long nave arcades, and in the dark recesses of the
triforium, and under the beetling vaulting, and quavered away high up in
the lantern, till it seemed like the death-groan of a giant.

"Take it up," Westray said; "I can't bear the throbbing."

"Very well; now listen while I give you the _Gloria_. No, I really
think I had better go through the whole service again; you see, it leads
up more naturally to the finale."

He began the service again, and played it with all the conscientious
attention and sympathy that the creative artist must necessarily give to
his own work. He enjoyed, too, that pleasurable surprise which awaits
the discovery that a composition laid aside for many years and half
forgotten is better and stronger than had been imagined, even as a
disused dress brought out of the wardrobe sometimes astonishes us with
its freshness and value.

Westray stood on a foot-pace at the end of the loft which allowed him to
look over the curtain into the church. His eyes roamed through the
building as he listened, but he did not appreciate the music the less.
Nay, rather, he appreciated it the more, as some writers find literary
perception and power of expression quickened at the influence of music
itself. The great church was empty. Janaway had left for his tea; the
doors were locked, no strangers could intrude; there was no sound, no
murmur, no voice, save only the voices of the organ-pipes. So Westray
listened. Stay, were there no other voices? was there nothing he
heard--nothing that spoke within him? At first he was only conscious of
_something_--something that drew his attention away from the music, and
then the disturbing influence was resolved into another voice, small,
but rising ver