It was the sexton digging.
She found that out in a moment by looking behind her, through the window, to whence the shadow came.
Now as she was looking at Jorian Ketel digging, suddenly a tone of the preacher's voice fell upon her ear and her mind so distinctly, it seemed literally to strike her, and make her vibrate inside and out.
Her hand went to her bosom, so strange and sudden was the thrill. Then she turned round and looked at the preacher. His back was turned and nothing visible but his tonsure. She sighed. That tonsure being all she saw, contradicted the tone effectually.
Yet she now leaned a little forward with downcast eyes, hoping for that accent again. It did not come. But the whole voice grew strangely upon her. It rose and fell as the preacher warmed: and it seemed to waken faint echoes of a thousand happy memories. She would not look to dispel the melancholy pleasure this voice gave her.
Presently, in the middle of an eloquent period, the preacher stopped.
She almost sighed; a soothing music had ended. Could the sermon be ended already? No: she looked around; the people did not move.
A good many faces seemed now to turn her way. She looked behind her sharply. There was nothing there.
Startled countenances near her now eyed the preacher. She followed their looks; and there, in the pulpit, was a face of a staring corpse. The friar's eyes, naturally large, and made larger by the thinness of his cheeks, were dilated to supernatural size, and glaring, her way, out of a bloodless face.
She cringed and turned fearfully round; for she thought there must be some terrible thing near her. No: there was nothing; she was the outside figure of the listening crowd.