A long procession disappeared through the church porch, and the altar
draped in black shone with its many wax lights, which glistened as the
tears in a widow's eyes.

"Who has died in the town?" Dolf asked of an old beggar sitting at the
threshold of the church, his chin on his knees. "The son of a rich
family, a man of property, Jacques Karnavash. Give a trifle for the
repose of his soul."

Dolf took off his hat and entered the church.

He hid himself behind a pillar and saw the silver-nailed coffin
disappear beneath the black catafalque.

"Lord God," he said, "may Thy will be done. Forgive him as I have
forgiven him."

When the crowd made their taper-offering, he took a wax light from the
chorister and followed those who walked round the branch candlesticks
mighty as trees, which burned at the four corners of the pall.

Then he knelt down in the dark corner, far from the men and women who
had come out of respect for the dead, and these words were mingled with
his prayer:

"God, Father of men, forgive me also; I saved this man from drowning,
but my courage failed when I first saw that it was my Riekje's seducer,
and I desired vengeance. Then I pushed from me the man who had a mother,
and whom I was to restore to that mother; I thrust him back under the
water, before I saved him. Forgive me, O Lord, and if I must be punished