Lucy noticed with amusement that the man's face expressed a mild wonder at the neighbourhood in which he found himself, and that he winked solemnly at the coachman on his box. Lucy stood on the steps for a moment. The sky was quite dark, and the little side street in which she was, showed in a dim and sulphurous half-light--like the light round the House of Usher. A piano-organ close by was beating out its vibrant mechanical music with an incongruous and almost vulgar disregard of the menace of the heavens. The housekeeper opened the front door, and Lucy entered a big panelled hall, now in a gloom that was almost profound, and with a tiled floor that clicked and echoed as the high heels of her shoes struck upon it. "The vicar is in his study, Miss," the housekeeper said. She was a tall, gaunt, elderly woman, with a face that always reminded Lucy of a horse, and her voice was dry and hesitating. Lucy crossed the hall, opened a door of oak and another of green baize, and entered her brother's room. It was a large, lofty place. The walls were covered with books in sober bindings,--there must have been several thousands there. A soft carpet covered the floor, in the centre of which stood an enormous writing-table crowded with books and papers. Hardly any light came into the place through the long window, and two candles in massive silver holders stood upon the writing-table, throwing a soft radiance around. The light fell upon a tall crucifix of silver that stood upon the table, a beautiful specimen of English Pre-Reformation work. A small couch had been drawn up close to the table, and on it the priest lay asleep. The face was lined and drawn with worry and with work, and all its secrets were told as the man slept. One hand lay hanging from the side of the sofa--a lean, strong hand, with a coil of muscle upon the back. Seen thus in an abandonment of repose, Lucy's brother showed as a man worn and weary with battle, scarred and battered, bruised, but how irrevocably rich! A rush of tenderness came over the girl as she looked at him. Here was the man who had not winced or cried aloud, whose spirit was unbowed beneath the bludgeonings of life. A high serenity lay over the pain upon the face. It was a face vowed, a saint's face, and even as he slept the great soul which shone like a monstrance within him, irradiated the mask that hid it. Lucy saw all this, received some such impressions as those in two or three moments. Some attraction drew her eyes from the sleeper to the shining symbol of God's pain upon the table. Then they went back to Bernard Blantyre. To her excited fancy there seemed some subtle sympathy between them, an invisible shuttle that was flying to and fro.