n
the contrary, my hands were clasped across my closed eyes; but when from
time to time I turned to see if it was gone, it was reminded me of a
wild beast waiting to spring, and I seemed to myself to be holding it at
bay all the time with a great strain of the will, and, of course"--he
hesitated for an instant, and then added--"in virtue of a higher power."

The reserve of all his school forbade him to say more, but I understood
as well as if he had told me that he had been on his knees, praying all
the time, and there rose before my mind a picture of the
scene--moonlight, kneeling saint, and watching demon, which the leaf of
some illustrated missal might have furnished.

The bronze timepiece over the fireplace struck half-past six.

"I wonder if the carriage is at the door," said Austyn, rather
anxiously. He went into the hall and looked out through the narrow
windows. There was no carriage visible, and I deeply regretted the
second interruption that must follow when it did come.

"Let us walk up the hill and on a little way together. The carriage will
overtake us. My curiosity is not yet satisfied."

"Then first, Mr. Lyndsay, you must go back and drink some coffee; you
are not strong as I am, or accustomed to go out fasting into the morning
air."

Outside in the shadow of the hill, where the fog lay thick and white,
the gloom and the cold of the night still lingered, but as we climbed
the hill we climbed, too, into the brightness of a sunny
morning--brilliant, amber-tinted above the long blue shadows.

* * * * *

I had to speak first.

"Now tell me what the face was like."

"I do not think I can. To begin with, I have a very indistinct
remembrance of either the form or the colouring. Even at the time my
impression of both was very vague; what so overwhelmed and transfixed my
attention, to the exclusion of everything besides itself, was the look
upon the face."

"And that?"

"And that I literally cannot describe. I know no words that could depict
it, no images that could suggest it; you might as well ask me to tell
you what a new colour was like if I had seen it in my dreams, as some
people declare they have done. I could convey some faint idea of it by
describing its effect upon myself, but that, too, is very
difficult--that was like nothing I have ever felt before. It was the
realisation of much which I have affirmed all my life, and steadfastly
believed as well, but onl