The Altar of the Dead | Page 5

see of her and who had sunk deep into prayer at no great distance
from him. He wished he could sink, like her, to the very bottom, be as
motionless, as rapt in prostration. After a few moments he shifted his
seat; it was almost indelicate to be so aware of her. But Stransom
subsequently quite lost himself, floating away on the sea of light. If
occasions like this had been more frequent in his life he would have
had more present the great original type, set up in a myriad temples, of
the unapproachable shrine he had erected in his mind. That shrine had
begun in vague likeness to church pomps, but the echo had ended by
growing more distinct than the sound. The sound now rang out, the
type blazed at him with all its fires and with a mystery of radiance in
which endless meanings could glow. The thing became as he sat there
his appropriate altar and each starry candle an appropriate vow. He
numbered them, named them, grouped them--it was the silent roll-call
of his Dead. They made together a brightness vast and intense, a
brightness in which the mere chapel of his thoughts grew so dim that as
it faded away he asked himself if he shouldn't find his real comfort in
some material act, some outward worship.
This idea took possession of him while, at a distance, the black- robed
lady continued prostrate; he was quietly thrilled with his conception,
which at last brought him to his feet in the sudden excitement of a plan.
He wandered softly through the aisles, pausing in the different chapels,
all save one applied to a special devotion. It was in this clear recess,
lampless and unapplied, that he stood longest--the length of time it took
him fully to grasp the conception of gilding it with his bounty. He
should snatch it from no other rites and associate it with nothing
profane; he would simply take it as it should be given up to him and

make it a masterpiece of splendour and a mountain of fire. Tended
sacredly all the year, with the sanctifying church round it, it would
always be ready for his offices. There would be difficulties, but from
the first they presented themselves only as difficulties surmounted.
Even for a person so little affiliated the thing would be a matter of
arrangement. He saw it all in advance, and how bright in especial the
place would become to him in the intermissions of toil and the dusk of
afternoons; how rich in assurance at all times, but especially in the
indifferent world. Before withdrawing he drew nearer again to the spot
where he had first sat down, and in the movement he met the lady
whom he had seen praying and who was now on her way to the door.
She passed him quickly, and he had only a glimpse of her pale face and
her unconscious, almost sightless eyes. For that instant she looked
faded and handsome.
This was the origin of the rites more public, yet certainly esoteric, that
he at last found himself able to establish. It took a long time, it took a
year, and both the process and the result would have been--for any who
knew--a vivid picture of his good faith. No one did know, in fact--no
one but the bland ecclesiastics whose acquaintance he had promptly
sought, whose objections he had softly overridden, whose curiosity and
sympathy he had artfully charmed, whose assent to his eccentric
munificence he had eventually won, and who had asked for concessions
in exchange for indulgences. Stransom had of course at an early stage
of his enquiry been referred to the Bishop, and the Bishop had been
delightfully human, the Bishop had been almost amused. Success was
within sight, at any rate from the moment the attitude of those whom it
concerned became liberal in response to liberality. The altar and the
sacred shell that half encircled it, consecrated to an ostensible and
customary worship, were to be splendidly maintained; all that Stransom
reserved to himself was the number of his lights and the free enjoyment
of his intention. When the intention had taken complete effect the
enjoyment became even greater than he had ventured to hope. He liked
to think of this effect when far from it, liked to convince himself of it
yet again when near. He was not often indeed so near as that a visit to it
hadn't perforce something of the patience of a pilgrimage; but the time
he gave to his devotion came to seem to him more a contribution to his
other interests than a betrayal of them. Even a loaded life might be

easier when one had added a new necessity to it.
How much