This gate, over which a death’s-head was placed, was that of the cemetery.

The wapentake passed through it, then the men, then the second torch. 
The procession decreased therein, like a reptile entering his retreat.

The files of police penetrated into that other darkness which was beyond the gate; then the bier; then the man with the spade; then the chaplain with his torch and his book, and the gate closed.

There was nothing left but a haze of light above the wall.

A muttering was heard; then some dull sounds.  Doubtless the chaplain and the gravedigger—­the one throwing on the coffin some verses of Scripture, the other some clods of earth.

The muttering ceased; the heavy sounds ceased.  A movement was made.  The torches shone.  The wapentake reappeared, holding high his weapon, under the reopened gate of the cemetery; then the chaplain with his book, and the gravedigger with his spade.  The cortege reappeared without the coffin.

The files of men crossed over in the same order, with the same taciturnity, and in the opposite direction.  The gate of the cemetery closed.  That of the prison opened.  Its sepulchral architecture stood out against the light.  The obscurity of the passage became vaguely visible.  The solid and deep night of the jail was revealed to sight; then the whole vision disappeared in the depths of shadow.

The knell ceased.  All was locked in silence.  A sinister incarceration of shadows.

A vanished vision; nothing more.

A passage of spectres, which had disappeared.

The logical arrangement of surmises builds up something which at least resembles evidence.  To the arrest of Gwynplaine, to the secret mode of his capture, to the return of his garments by the police officer, to the death bell of the prison to which he had been conducted, was now added, or rather adjusted—­portentous circumstance—­a coffin carried to the grave.

“He is dead!” cried Ursus.

He sank down upon a stone.

“Dead!  They have killed him!  Gwynplaine!  My child!  My son!”

And he burst into passionate sobs.

CHAPTER V.

STATE POLICY DEALS WITH LITTLE MATTERS AS WELL AS WITH GREAT.

Ursus, alas! had boasted that he had never wept.  His reservoir of tears was full.  Such plentitude as is accumulated drop on drop, sorrow on sorrow, through a long existence, is not to be poured out in a moment.  Ursus wept alone.

The first tear is a letting out of waters.  He wept for Gwynplaine, for Dea, for himself, Ursus, for Homo.  He wept like a child.  He wept like an old man.  He wept for everything at which he had ever laughed.  He paid off arrears.  Man is never nonsuited when he pleads his right to tears.

The corpse they had just buried was Hardquanonne’s; but Ursus could not know that.