oak
balustrade of the gallery at the west end. It was the place where Landry
had been wont to sit and listen when Morland played the organ. She could
almost see him now, with his parted lips and far-away blue eyes, and the
sunlight from the window behind making a halo of his hair. She wondered
how the church looked from his vantage point. She had never been into
the gallery. She walked slowly down the nave and up the dusty,
worm-eaten flight of stairs into the cobwebby regions above. There was a
low bench facing the balustrade. She moved along it, and sat down in
Landry's seat. There was no dreamy, haunting music to-day from the
organ, filling the church like the murmur of the sea. Morland had
sterner work to do in the world now than to improvise nocturnes. How
rapt his face had been as the grand harmonies came thrilling from his
fingers! Was this the exact angle from which Landry had viewed him? She
moved slightly farther along, and in doing so kicked some object with
her foot. She stooped to pick it up. It was something quite small, and
covered with dust. She held it up to look at it by the light from the
window. Then, with a little gasping sob, she fell back on to the seat.

It was nothing more nor less than the lost pocket-case.

Landry! They had never thought of Landry! He had been with them in the
cave when they hid it inside the cupboard. Lorraine remembered now how
he had made confused reference to papers and Morland going to the war,
and how Claudia had soothed him, and told him to pick shells on the
beach. Without doubt he must have taken the case with some dazed belief
that by so doing he was hindering the authorities from sending his
brother to the front. Perhaps that was the mysterious secret he was
babbling about in bed to-day. The case might have lain for months in the
dust, if Lorraine had not chanced to come into the gallery this
afternoon. Chanced! There was no such thing as chance! Surely it was the
answer to that intense, voiceless thought-wave of prayer, in which her
groping spirit had for a moment soared into a higher plane and touched
the fringes of the eternal world.

Morland was saved--saved from the shadow of a terrible disgrace. She
must let him know at once, for by this time he must have reached the
cave and ransacked it in vain. Suppose in his despair he were to carry
out his threat and never return! The horror of the thought sent Lorraine
tearing down the gallery steps and out into the su