He got up, crossed the little room and touched the shoulder of the dreamer. Sir Graham started sharply and turned a frowning face. "What is it?" "The atmosphere is very cold and damp after the storm." "You wish me to shut the window? I beg your pardon." He drew in and shut it, then moved to the door. "You are going out?" said Uniacke uneasily. "Yes." "I--I would not speak to the Skipper, if I were you. He is happier when he is let quite alone." "I want to see him. I want him to sit for me." "To sit!" Uniacke repeated, with an accent almost of horror. "Yes," said Sir Graham doggedly. "I have a great picture in my mind." "But--" "The Skipper's meeting with his drowned comrades, in that belfry tower. He will stand with the ropes dropping from his hands, triumph in his eyes. They will be seen coming up out of the darkness, grey men and dripping from the sea, with dead eyes and hanging lips. And first among them will be my wonder-child, on whom will fall a ray of light from a wild moon, half seen through the narrow slit of the deep-set window." "No, no!" "What do you say?" "Your wonder-child must not be there. Why should he? He is alive." "You think so?" Uniacke made no reply. "I say, do you think so?" "How can I know? It is impossible. But--yes, I think so." The clergyman turned away. A sickness of the conscience overtook him like physical pain. Sir Graham was by the door with his hand upon it. "And yet," he said, "you do not believe in intuitions. Nothing tells you whether that woman you loved is dead or living. You said that." "Nothing." "Then what should tell you whether Jack is dead or living?" He turned and went out. Presently Uniacke saw his dark figure pass, like a shadow, across the square of the window. The night grew more quiet by slow degrees. The hush after the storm increased. And to the young clergyman's unquiet nerves it seemed like a crescendo in music instead of like a diminuendo, as sometimes seems the falling to sleep of a man to a man who cannot sleep. The noise of the storm had been softer than the sound of this increasing silence in which the church bells presently died away. Uniacke was consumed by an apprehension that was almost like the keen tooth of jealousy. For he knew that the Skipper had ceased from his patient task and Sir Graham did not return. He imagined a colloquy. But the Skipper's madness would preserve the secret which he no longer knew, and, therefore, could not reveal. He made the bells call Jack Pringle. He would never point to the defaced grave and say, "Jack Pringle lies beneath this stone." And yet sanity might, perhaps, return, a rush of knowledge of the past and recognition of its tragedy. Uniacke took his hat and went to the door. He stood out on the step. Sea-birds were crying. The sound of the sea withdrew moment by moment, as if it were stealing furtively away. Behind, in the rectory passage, the servant clattered as she brought in the supper.