u?" he said to Jack.

"I'm coming in. I'll show you where to change."

* * * * *

Twenty yards of an irregular twisted path, over which they stumbled two
or three times, led them down to the little ruined doorway at the west
end of the old church. Jack's father had restored the place admirably,
so far as restoration was possible, and there stood now, strong as ever,
the old tower, roofed and floored throughout, abutting on the four
roofless walls, within which ran the double row of column bases.

Jack struck a light, kindled a bicycle lamp he had brought with him, and
led the way.

"Come in here," he said.

Frank followed him into the room at the base of the tower and looked
round.

"This looks all right," he said. "It was a Catholic church once, I
suppose?

"Yes; the parson says this was the old sacristy. They've found things
here, I think--cupboards in the wall, and so on."

"This'll do excellently," said Frank. "I shan't be five minutes."

Jack went out again without a word. He felt it was a little too much to
expect him to see the change actually being made, and the garments of
sacrifice put on. (It struck him with an unpleasant shock, considering
the form of his previous metaphor, that he should have taken Frank into
the old sacristy.)

He sat down on the low wall, built to hold the churchyard from slipping
altogether down the hill-side, and looked out over the little town
below.

The sky was more noticeable here; one was more conscious of the enormous
silent vault, crowded with the steady stars, cool and aloof; and,
beneath, of the feverish little town with sparks of red light dotted
here and there, where men wrangled and planned and bargained, and
carried on the little affairs of their little life with such astonishing
zest. Jack was far from philosophical as a rule, but it is a fact that
meditations of this nature did engross him for a minute or two while he
sat and waited for Frank, and heard the low voices talking in the lane
outside. It even occurred to him for an instant that it was just
possible that what Frank had said in the smoking-room before dinner was
true, and that Something really did have him in hand, and really, did
intend a definite plan and result to emerge from this deplorable and
quixotic nonsense. (I suppose the contrast of stars and human lights may
have helped to suggest this sort of thing to him.)

Then he gave himself up again to dismal cons