Westray returned to Cullerne by the evening train. It was near ten
o'clock, and he was finishing his supper, when someone tapped at the
door, and Miss Euphemia Joliffe came in.
"I beg your pardon for interrupting you, sir," she said; "I am a little
anxious about Mr Sharnall. He was not in at teatime, and has not come
back since. I thought you might know perhaps where he was. It is years
since he has been out so late in the evening."
"I haven't the least idea where he is," Westray said rather testily, for
he was tired with a long day's work. "I suppose he has gone out
somewhere to supper."
"No one ever asks Mr Sharnall out. I do not think he can be gone out
to supper."
"Oh, well, I dare say he will turn up in due course; let me hear before
you go to bed if he has come back;" and he poured himself out another
cup of tea, for he was one of those thin-blooded and old-womanly men who
elevate the drinking of tea instead of other liquids into a special
merit. "He could not understand," he said, "why everybody did not drink
tea. It was so much more refreshing—one could work so much better
after drinking tea."
He turned to some calculations for the section of a tie-rod, with which
Sir George Farquhar had at last consented to strengthen the south side
of the tower, and did not notice how time passed till there came another
irritating tap, and his landlady reappeared.
"It is nearly twelve o'clock," she said, "and we have seen nothing of
Mr Sharnall. I am so alarmed! I am sure I am very sorry to trouble
you, Mr Westray, but my niece and I are so alarmed."
"I don't quite see what I am to do," Westray said, looking up. "Could
he have gone out with Lord Blandamer? Do you think Lord Blandamer could
have asked him to Fording?"
"Lord Blandamer was here this afternoon," Miss Joliffe answered, "but he
never saw Mr Sharnall, because Mr Sharnall was not at home."
"Oh, Lord Blandamer was here, was he?" asked Westray. "Did he leave no
message for me?"
"He asked if you were in, but he left no message for you. He drank a
cup of tea with us. I think he came in merely as a friendly visitor," Miss Joliffe said with some dignity. "I think he came in to drink a cup of tea with me. I was unfortunately at the Dorcas meeting when he first arrived, but on my return he drank tea with me."
"It is curious; he seems generally to come on Saturday afternoons," said
Westray. "Are you always at the Dorcas meeting on Saturday
afternoons?"
"Yes," Miss Joliffe said, "I am always at the meeting on Saturday
afternoons."
There was a minute's pause—Westray and Miss Joliffe were both thinking.
"Well, well," Westray said, "I shall be working for some time yet, and
will let Mr Sharnall in if he comes; but I suspect that he has been
invited to spend the night at Fording. Anyhow, you can go to bed with a
clear conscience, Miss Joliffe; you have waited up far beyond your usual
time."
So Miss Euphemia went to bed, and left Westray alone; and a few minutes
later the four quarter-chimes rang, and the tenor struck twelve, and
then the bells fell to playing a tune, as they did every three hours day
and night. Those who dwell near Saint Sepulchre's take no note of the
bells. The ear grows so accustomed to them, that quarter by quarter and
hour by hour strike unperceived. If strangers come to stop under the
shadow of the church the clangour disturbs their sleep for the first
night, and after that they, too, hear nothing. So Westray would sit
working late night by night, and could not say whether the bells had
rung or not. It was only when attention was too wide awake that he
heard them, but he heard them this night, and listened while they played
the sober melody of "Mount Ephraim."