I could have laughed aloud to think that the journey had seemed to me so long. In truth it had occupied some five minutes, as I discovered, holding my horologe to the moon, and had not occupied so long if it were not for my groping and pausing. But the floor was solid under my feet. I had to think a minute before I knew where I was. I was in that blind tower of St. Mary’s to the eastward corner, in the basement whereof were deposited the brooms and pails for cleaning of the church. Playing hide and seek therein with a boy’s irreverence I had marvelled why, since the tower was blind—nothing but a roof of stone above the chamber—that they should have troubled to pierce it with lancets like any honest belfry. The upper portion of the tower was in ruins, as you could see from the graveyard without. Ah, and so the blind tower had its uses; as a hiding-place it might be for some one who had lived in the Manor-house in old wild days. For, as to any manner of egress from the tower, that I could not see at all. The chamber where I stood was full of the drifted leaves and the nests of birds. Except for the shaft of light from the lancet it was in blackness, and I began to wonder if the tower went no further. I groped about the walls, however, till I came upon a staircase, which went up, not in the middle, as is usual in towers, but at one corner, so that each story formed a room. ’Twas three stories’ climb to the upper room. Here it was that the ruin had befallen the tower; for where the lancet had been there was a great gap, and somewhat of the roof had fallen away. I was now clear of the low trees, and the half-veiled moon looked within the chamber. Then I saw to my amazement that at the side of it, yet roofed over, there was a bed, a chair, a table, all of the rudest. But little of this I saw till afterwards, for on the bed lay the figure of that monk who had spoken with me, now nearly fifteen months ago. His face was in shadow, yet I never thought for a moment that he slept. One lean hand dangled from his great sleeve over the side of the bed; it hung helplessly; and young as I was I had looked on death often enough to know that this was the hand of the dead. The habit was composed decently about the figure. Either the monk had so composed himself for death or he had had some companion who had fled away leaving him to the eye of heaven. Standing there, a great awe and compassion fell upon me. Something of yearning and tenderness afflicted me as though the dead man had been of my blood: the tears rushed from my eyes, and I trembled so that I was forced to my knees; yea, as though invisible hands had bent me. I knew little of praying, but something of wordless petition to the Great Father of us all stirred in my dull and proud spirit. In that moment I had indeed the heart of a child.