ed. "Don't you want to get out?"

The priest was holding a splinter of the broken wood between his finger
and thumb, and did not immediately reply. At last he said thoughtfully:
"Want to get out? Why, no. I rather think I want to get in." And he
dived into the darkness under the wooden floor so abruptly as to knock
off his big curved clerical hat and leave it lying on the boards above,
without any clerical head in it.

Flambeau looked once more inland and out to sea, and once more could see
nothing but seas as wintry as the snow, and snows as level as the sea.

There came a scurrying noise behind him, and the little priest came
scrambling out of the hole faster than he had fallen in. His face was no
longer disconcerted, but rather resolute, and, perhaps only through the
reflections of the snow, a trifle paler than usual.

"Well?" asked his tall friend. "Have you found the god of the temple?"

"No," answered Father Brown. "I have found what was sometimes more
important. The Sacrifice."

"What the devil do you mean?" cried Flambeau, quite alarmed.

Father Brown did not answer. He was staring, with a knot in his
forehead, at the landscape; and he suddenly pointed at it. "What's that
house over there?" he asked.

Following his finger, Flambeau saw for the first time the corners of a
building nearer than the farmhouse, but screened for the most part with
a fringe of trees. It was not a large building, and stood well back from
the shore--, but a glint of ornament on it suggested that it was part
of the same watering-place scheme of decoration as the bandstand, the
little gardens and the curly-backed iron seats.

Father Brown jumped off the bandstand, his friend following; and as they
walked in the direction indicated the trees fell away to right and
left, and they saw a small, rather flashy hotel, such as is common in
resorts--the hotel of the Saloon Bar rather than the Bar Parlour. Almost
the whole frontage was of gilt plaster and figured glass, and between
that grey seascape and the grey, witch-like trees, its gimcrack quality
had something spectral in its melancholy. They both felt vaguely that
if any food or drink were offered at such a hostelry, it would be the
paste-board ham and empty mug of the pantomime.

In this, however, they were not altogether confirmed. As they drew
nearer and nearer to the place they saw in front of the buffet, which
was apparently closed, one of the iron garden-seats with curly bac