The women stood on either hand crying. They had clothed the dead in
white and crossed her hands upon her breast. A linen covering had been
pressed, nun-like, round the head and chin. The wound was hidden, and
the face lay framed in an oval of pure white, which gave it a strange
severity.

Isaac bent over her. Was this _Bessie_--Bessie, the human, faulty,
chattering creature--whom he, her natural master, had been free to scold
or caress at will? At bottom he had always been conscious in regard to
her of a silent but immeasurable superiority, whether as mere man to
mere woman, or as the Christian to the sinner.

Now--he dared scarcely touch her. As she lay in this new-found dignity,
the proud peace of her look intimidated, accused him--would always
accuse him till he too rested as she rested now, clad for the end. Yet
she had bade him kiss her--and he obeyed her--groaning within himself,
incapable altogether, out of sheer abasement, of saying those words she
had asked of him. Then he sat down beside her, motionless. John tried
once or twice to speak to him, but Isaac shook his head impatiently. At
last the mere presence of Bolderfield in the room seemed to anger him.
He threw the old man such dark and restless looks that Mary Anne
perceived them, and, with instinctive understanding, persuaded John to
go.

She, however, must needs go with him, and she went. The other woman
stayed. Every now and then she looked furtively at Isaac.

'If some one don't look arter 'im,' she said to herself, ''ee'll go as
his father and his brothers went afore him. 'Ee's got the look on it