through crimson and blue windows.  Then the functionaries began to form an aisle among the spectators, and emotion grew tenser.  The organ was silent for a moment, and when it recommenced its song the song was the supreme expression of human grief, the dirge of Chopin, wrapping the whole cathedral in heavy folds of sorrow.  And as that appeal expired in the pulsating air, the fresh voices of little boys, sweeter even than grief, rose in the distance.

It was at this point that Priam Farll descried Lady Sophia Entwistle, a tall, veiled figure, in full mourning.  She had come among the comparatively unprivileged to his funeral.  Doubtless influence such as hers could have obtained her a seat in the transept, but she had preferred the secluded humility of the nave.  She had come from Paris for his funeral.  She was weeping for her affianced.  She stood there, actually within ten yards of him.  She had not caught sight of him, but she might do so at any moment, and she was slowly approaching the spot where he trembled.

He fled, with nothing in his heart but resentment against her.  She had not proposed to him; he had proposed to her.  She had not thrown him aside; he had thrown her aside.  He was not one of her mistakes; she was one of his mistakes.  Not she, but he, had been capricious, impulsive, hasty.  Yet he hated her.  He genuinely thought she had sinned against him, and that she ought to be exterminated.  He condemned her for all manner of things as to which she had had no choice:  for instance, the irregularity of her teeth, and the hollow under her chin, and the little tricks of deportment which are always developed by a spinster as she reaches forty.  He fled in terror of her.  If she should have a glimpse of him, and should recognize him, the consequence would be absolutely disastrous—­disastrous in every way; and a period of publicity would dawn for him such as he could not possibly contemplate either in cold blood or warm.  He fled blindly, insinuating himself through the crowd, until he reached a grille in which was a gate, ajar.  His strange stare must have affrighted the guardian of the gate, for the robed fellow stood away, and Priam passed within the grille, where were winding steps, which he mounted.  Up the steps ran coils of fire-hose.  He heard the click of the gate as the attendant shut it, and he was thankful for an escape.  The steps led to the organ-loft, perched on the top of the massive screen.  The organist was seated behind a half-drawn curtain, under shaded electric lights, and on the ample platform whose parapet overlooked the choir were two young men who whispered with the organist.  None of the three even glanced at Priam.  Priam sat down on a windsor chair fearfully, like an intruder, his face towards the choir.