"I want no entertainment!" said Ambrose, "I should feel only as if he," pointing to the phantom, "were at hand, clutching me with his deadly claw," and he looked over his shoulder with a shudder. There was a box by the door to receive alms for masses on behalf of the souls in purgatory, and here he halted and felt for the pouch at his girdle, to pour in all the contents; but Steelman said, "Hold, sir, are you free to dispose of your brother's share, you who are purse-bearer for both?" "I would fain hold my brother to the only path of safety." Again Tibble gave his dry cough, but added, "He is not in the path of safety who bestows that which is not his own but is held in trust. I were foully to blame if I let this grim portrayal so work on you as to lead you to beggar not only yourself, but your brother, with no consent of his." For Tibble was no impulsive Italian, but a sober-minded Englishman of sturdy good sense, and Ambrose was reasonable enough to listen and only drop in a few groats which he knew to be his own. At the same moment, a church bell was heard, the tone of which Steelman evidently distinguished from all the others, and he led the way out of the Pardon churchyard, over the space in front of Saint Paul's. Many persons were taking the same route; citizens in gowns and gold or silver chains, their wives in tall pointed hats; craftsmen, black-gowned scholarly men with fur caps, but there was a much more scanty proportion of priests, monks or friars, than was usual in any popular assemblage. Many of the better class of women carried folding stools, or had them carried by their servants, as if they expected to sit and wait. "Is there a procession toward? or a relic to be displayed?" asked Ambrose, trying to recollect whose feast-day it might be. Tibble screwed up his mouth in an extraordinary smile as he said, "Relic quotha? yea, the soothest relic there be of the Lord and Master of us all." "Methought the true Cross was always displayed on the High Altar," said Ambrose, as all turned to a side aisle of the noble nave. "Rather say hidden," muttered Tibble. "Thou shalt have it displayed, young sir, but neither in wood nor gilded shrine. See, here he comes who setteth it forth." From the choir came, attended by half a dozen clergy, a small, pale man, in the ordinary dress of a priest, with a square cap on his head. He looked spare, sickly, and wrinkled, but the furrows traced lines of sweetness, his mouth was wonderfully gentle, and there was a keen brightness about his clear grey eye. Every one rose and made obeisance as he passed along to the stone stair leading to a pulpit projecting from one of the columns.