They waited, as mourners wait beside a tomb. As the moon rose, the churchyard grew more distinct. The surrounding graves came into view, the crude bulk of the rectory, the outline of the church tower, and the long wall of the churchyard. On the white faces of the two men the light fell pitilessly, revealing the strained and anxious expression of Uniacke, the staring watchfulness of the painter. The minutes ran by. Uniacke shivered slightly in the wind. By degrees he began to lose the expectation of seeing any apparition. Presently he even sneered silently at himself for his folly in having ever entertained it. Nevertheless he was strongly affected by the nearness of the wonder-child's grave, from which seemed to emanate an influence definite and searching, and—so he felt—increasingly hostile, either to himself or to the artist. It came up like a thing that threatened. It crept near like a thing that would destroy. Uniacke wondered whether Sir Graham was conscious of it. But the painter said nothing, and the clergyman dared not ask him. At length, however, his fanciful sense of this dead power, speaking as it were from the ground under his feet, became so intolerable to him that he was resolved to go; and he was about to tell Sir Graham of his intention when the painter suddenly caught his arm in a tight grip.
"There it is," he whispered.
He was staring before him over the grave. Uniacke followed his eyes. He saw the short grass stirring faintly in the night wind. He thought it looked like hair bristling, and his hair moved on his head. He saw the churchyard in a maze of moon-rays. And with the moonlight had come many shadows. But not one of them was deceptive. Not one took the form of any spectre. Nevertheless Uniacke recoiled from this little grave at his feet, for it seemed to him as if the power that had been sleeping there stirred, forsook its recumbent position, rose up warily, intent on coming forth to confront him.
"You see it?" whispered Sir Graham, still keeping hold of his arm.
"No, no I see nothing; there is nothing. It's your fancy, your imagination that plays tricks on you."
"No, it's Jack. Oh, Uniacke, see—see how he poses! He knows that I shall paint him to-morrow. How horrible he is! Do the drowned always look like that?"
"Come away, Sir Graham. This is a hideous hallucination. Come away."
"How he is altered. All his features are coarsened, bloated. My wonder-child! He is tragic now, and he is disgusting. How loathsomely he twists his fingers! Must I paint him like that—with that grinning, ghastly mouth—little Jack? Ah! ah! He poses—he poses always. He would have me paint him now,—here in the moonlight—here—here—standing on this grave!"
"Sir Graham, come with me!" exclaimed Uniacke.
And this time he forcibly drew his companion with him from the grave. The painter seemed inclined to resist for a moment. He turned his head and looked long and eagerly behind him. Then suddenly he acquiesced.