Last night we had seen the interior in the gloom and mystery of darkness; this morning we saw it by the dim religious light of day.  It was difficult to say which view was the more impressive.  The results were very different.  We now gazed upon all its beauty of detail, all the harmony of perfect architecture.  The coloured rays coming in through the ancient stained windows added their glamour and refinement to the scene; to those that were more modern we tried to shut our eyes.  The lofty pillars of the nave, separating the aisles, rose majestically, fitting supports for the beautiful gothic arches above them, in their turn surmounted by the triforium; in their turn again crowned by the ancient windows.  Above all, at a great height, came the arched roof.  Thus the eye was carried up from beauty to beauty until it seemed lost in dreamland.  Wandering aside, it fell upon the aisles and side chapels, visions of beauty interrupted only by the wonderful columns, with their fine bases and rich capitals.  The east window seemed very far off, a portion of it lost in the curve to the left, together with the beautiful gothic arches and double triforium of that side of the choir.

We sat and gazed upon all, and lost ourselves in the spell of the vision; and presently our old friend the verger found us out.

“But you live in the cathedral!” he exclaimed.

“No,” we replied; “we should only like to do so.  We envy you, whose days are chiefly passed here.”

“I don’t know,” he returned, with the resigned air of a martyr.  “If you had trodden this pavement for fifty years as I have, I think you would like to change the scene.  And I have not the chance of doing it even in the next state, for you know I have a conviction that I shall come back here as a ghost.  I thought you were ghosts last night, and a fine fright you gave me.  I don’t know why ghosts should frighten one, but they do.  I don’t like to feel that when I get into the next state, and come back to earth as a ghost, I shall frighten people.  It would be better not to come back at all.”

“What are they like, those that you have seen?” we asked, out of curiosity.

He closed his eyes, as if invoking a vision, put on a very solemn expression, and then opened them with a wide stare into vacancy.  We quite started and looked behind us to see if any were visible.

“No, they are not there,” he said.  “They only come at night.  How can I describe them?  How can you describe a shadow?  They are all shadows, and they seem everywhere at once.  I never hear them, but I can see them and feel them.  I mean that I feel them morally—­their influence:  of course you cannot handle a ghost.  The air grows cold, and an icy wind touches my face as they pass to and fro.”

“Then if the wind is icy they cannot come from purgatory?” suggested H.C. very innocently.