The rain was like a curtain let down between the prying, clattering world
without and the strange peace within: the old man in his perfect sleep;
the young, misused wife in that passing oblivion borrowed from death and
as tender and compassionate while it lasts.

As though with merciful indulgence, Fate permitted no one to enter upon
the dark scene save a woman in whom was a deep motherhood which had never
nourished a child, and to whom this silence and this sorrow gave no
terrors. Silence was her constant companion, and for sorrow she had been
granted the touch that assuages the sharpness of pain and the love called
neighbourly kindness. Maitresse Aimable came.

Unto her it was given to minister here. As the night went by, and the
offices had been done for the dead, she took her place by the bedside of
the young wife, who lay staring into space, tearless and still, the life
consuming away within her.

In the front room of the cottage, his head buried in his hands, Ranulph
Delagarde sat watching beside the body of the Sieur de Mauprat.




CHAPTER XXVII

In the Rue d'Driere, the undertaker and his head apprentice were right
merry. But why should they not be? People had to die, quoth the
undertaker, and when dead they must be buried. Burying was a trade,
and wherefore should not one--discreetly--be cheerful at one's trade?