them to finish up in time to let us get back for
the _table d'hote_.'

'Sooner or later that organ will shake the Cathedral to bits: the
vibrations were fearful. I thought there was a great deal too much
noise. You lose effect when you pile up the agony like that: people only
want to stop their ears to prevent their heads being split.'

So they chatted on. But what was it that Nan, who had accompanied them,
had heard as she sat in the great, empty, dimly-lit Cathedral, with her
hands clasped, her head bent forward on them, her eyes closed? Or,
rather, what was it that she saw?--for this seemed to be a picture in
music. She saw a small chapel far away up in the mountains, the
trembling red rays in the windows looking strange above the snow. She
heard the monks at their midnight chanting--low, and sad, and distant.
And then it seemed, as she listened, as if the stars overhead were being
blurred out, and a murmuring wind came down the gorge, and the air grew
cold. The darkness deepened; the wind rose and moaned through the pine
forests; then an angry gust swept along, so that the intoning of the
monks was lost altogether. There was a rumble of distant
thunder--overhead, among the unseen peaks. But still, unconscious of the
threatening storm, those within the small building went on with their
holy office, and there were snatches of the clear singing of boys--so
faint that you could scarcely hear; and again the strong, sad, sombre
voices of the men. Then the tempest broke, fierce and terrible: the
elements seemed mingled together. She lost sight of the chapel in the
whirling snow; the heavens rattled overhead; and the wind swept down so
that the whole earth trembled. A horror of wrath and darkness has
overwhelmed the world; and what of the patient choristers now? No longer
are their voices heard amid the appalling fury of the hurricane; the
sudden lightning-flash reveals nothing in the blackness; the powers of
evil have overcome; and the universe has lost its hope. But now there
comes a lull; and suddenly--far away, and faint, and triumphant--rises
the song of reliance and joy. The demons of the night mutter and moan;
but the divine song rises clearer and more clear. It is the voice of
faith, silver-toned and sweet; and the very heavens themselves seem to
listen; and the thunders rumble away into the valleys; and the stars,
shining, and calm, and benignant, come out again over the mountain-peaks.
And lo! on