It was in the grey time of dawn.  She trembled in a sweat of disquiet, and not being able to endure the thought of her brother being asleep, she went and tapped at his door.

‘Owen!’

He was not a heavy sleeper, and it was verging upon his time to rise.

‘What do you want, Cytherea?’

’I ought not to have left Knapwater last night.  I wish I had not.  I really think I will start at once.  She wants me, I know.’

‘What time is it?’

‘A few minutes past four.’

’You had better not.  Keep to the time agreed upon.  Consider, we should have such a trouble in rousing the driver, and other things.’

Upon the whole it seemed wiser not to act on a mere fancy.  She went to bed again.

An hour later, when Owen was thinking of getting up, a knocking came to the front door.  The next minute something touched the glass of Owen’s window.  He waited—­the noise was repeated.  A little gravel had been thrown against it to arouse him.

He crossed the room, pulled up the blind, and looked out.  A solemn white face was gazing upwards from the road, expectantly straining to catch the first glimpse of a person within the panes.  It was the face of a Knapwater man sitting on horseback.

Owen saw his errand.  There is an unmistakable look in the face of every man who brings tidings of death.  Graye opened the window.

‘Miss Aldclyffe . . .’ said the messenger, and paused.

‘Ah—­dead?’

‘Yes—­she is dead.’

‘When did she die?’

’At ten minutes past four, after another effusion.  She knew best, you see, sir.  I started directly, by the rector’s orders.’

SEQUEL

Fifteen months have passed, and we are brought on to Midsummer
Night, 1867.

The picture presented is the interior of the old belfry of Carriford
Church, at ten o’clock in the evening.

Six Carriford men and one stranger are gathered there, beneath the light of a flaring candle stuck on a piece of wood against the wall.  The six Carriford men are the well-known ringers of the fine-toned old bells in the key of F, which have been music to the ears of Carriford parish and the outlying districts for the last four hundred years.  The stranger is an assistant, who has appeared from nobody knows where.

The six natives—­in their shirt-sleeves, and without hats—­pull and catch frantically at the dancing bellropes, the locks of their hair waving in the breeze created by their quick motions; the stranger, who has the treble bell, does likewise, but in his right mind and coat.  Their ever-changing shadows mingle on the wall in an endless variety of kaleidoscopic forms, and the eyes of all the seven are religiously fixed on a diagram like a large addition sum, which is chalked on the floor.

Vividly contrasting with the yellow light of the candle upon the four unplastered walls of the tower, and upon the faces and clothes of the men, is the scene discernible through the screen beneath the tower archway.  At the extremity of the long mysterious avenue of the nave and chancel can be seen shafts of moonlight streaming in at the east window of the church—­blue, phosphoric, and ghostly.