the clustered roofs and
chimneys of the town; the upward glow from the market-place showed that
the lamps were still burning, though he could not see them. Then, as
the glow lessened gradually and finally became extinct, he knew that the
lights were being put out because midnight was past. The moonlight
glittered on the roofs, which were still wet, and above all towered in
gigantic sable mass the centre tower of Saint Sepulchre's.

Westray felt a curious physical tension. He was excited, he could not
tell why; he knew that sleep would be impossible if he were to go to
bed. It _was_ an odd thing that Sharnall had not come home; Sharnall
_must_ have gone to Fording. He had spoken vaguely of an invitation to
Fording that he had received; but if he had gone there he must have
taken some things with him for the night, and he had not taken anything,
or Miss Euphemia would have said so. Stay, he would go down to
Sharnall's room and see if he could find any trace of his taking
luggage; perhaps he had left some message to explain his absence. He
lit a candle and went down, down the great well-staircase where the
stone steps echoed under his feet. A patch of bright moonshine fell on
the stairs from the skylight at the top, and a noise of someone moving
in the attics told him that Miss Joliffe was not yet asleep. There was
nothing in the organist's room to give any explanation of his absence.
The light of the candle was reflected on the front of the piano, and
Westray shuddered involuntarily as he remembered the conversation which
he had a few weeks before with this friend, and Mr Sharnall's strange
hallucinations as to the man that walked behind him with a hammer. He
looked into the bedroom with a momentary apprehension that his friend
might have been seized with illness, and be lying all this time
unconscious; but there was no one there--the bed was undisturbed. So he
went back to his own room upstairs, but the night had turned so chill
that he could no longer bear the open window. He stood with his hand
upon the sash looking out for a moment before he pulled it down, and
noticed how the centre tower dominated and prevailed over all the town.
It was impossible, surely, that this rock-like mass could be insecure;
how puny and insufficient to uphold such a tottering giant seemed the
tie-rods whose section he was working out. And then he thought of the
crack above the south transept arch that he had seen from the
orga