dead man; and in the far-off past there were little tender lights of
happiness, half real, half played, but never forgotten, upon which she
had once taught her thoughts to dwell tenderly and sadly. She had loved
the dead man in the first days of marriage, as well as her cold and
unawakened nature could love at all--if not for himself, at least for
the hopes of vanity built on his name. She had hated him in secret, but
she could not have hated him so heartily had there not once been a
little love to turn so fiercely sour. She could not have trained her
eyes to smile at him so gently had she not once smiled for his own
sake. And so, when they brought him dead to the gate of his own house,
his wife had still some shreds of memories for weeds to eke out a show
of sorrow.

She passed through the postern in the small round tower beside the
gateway, knowing that when she came out under the portcullis, the
funeral train would be just reaching the other end of the bridge. The
little vaulted room in the lower story of the tower was not four steps
in width across, from door to door; but it was almost dark, and there
the Lady Goda stopped one moment before she went out to meet the
mourners. Standing still in the dimness, she pressed her gloved hands
to her eyes with all her might, as though to concentrate her thoughts
and her strength. Then she threw back her arms, and looked up through
the gloom, and almost laughed; and she felt something just below her
heart that stifled her like a great joy. Then all at once she was calm,
and touched her eyes again with her gloved hands, but gently now, as
though smoothing them and preparing them to look upon what they must
see presently. She opened the little door, and was suddenly standing in
the midst of the frightened herd of retainers and servants, while the
last strains of the dirge came echoing under the deep archway. At that
instant another sound startled the air--the deep bell-note of the great