It had never yet got beyond a tendency--the barest fluttering suggestion of a tempted eyelid--but the whole Irish population of the place felt themselves to be waiting, with clenched fists but sinking hearts, for the wink itself.
The Rev.Theron Ware had not caught even the faintest hint of these overtures to suspicion.
When he had entered the huge, dark, cool vault of the church, he could see nothing at first but a faint light up over the gallery, far at the other end.

Then, little by little, his surroundings shaped themselves out of the gloom.

To his right was a rail and some broad steps rising toward a softly confused mass of little gray vertical bars and the pale twinkle of tiny spots of gilded reflection, which he made out in the dusk to be the candles and trappings of the altar.

Overhead the great arches faded away from foundations of dimly discernible capitals into utter blackness.

There was a strange medicinal odor--as of cubeb cigarettes--in the air.
After a little pause, he tiptoed noiselessly up the side aisle toward the end of the church--toward the light above the gallery.