To Vivie’s great surprise, there was a considerable attendance at the ceremony.  She had expected no more than the company of Minna—­an unprofessing but real Christian, if ever there were one, and the equally Christian if equally hedonist Mme. Trouessart.  But there came in addition quite a number of shopkeepers from the Rue Royale, the Rues de Schaerbeek, du Marais, de Lione, and de l’Association, with whom Mrs. Warren had dealt in years gone by.  “C’etait une dame tres convenable,” said one purveyor, and the others agreed.  “Elle me paya ecus sonnants,” said another, “et toujours sans marchander.”  There was even present a more distinguished acquaintance of the past:  a long-retired Commissaire de Police of the Quartier in which Mrs. Warren’s hotel was situated.

He appeared in the tightly-buttoned frock-coat of civil life, with a minute disc of some civic decoration in his button hole, and an incredibly tall chimney-pot hat.  He came to render his respectueux hommages to the maitresse-femme who had conducted her business within the four corners of the law, “sans avoir maille a partir avec la police des moeurs.”

Mrs. Warren at least died with the reputation of one who promptly paid her bills; and the whole assistance, as it walked slowly back to Brussels, recalled many a deed of kindness and jovial charity on the part of the dead Englishwoman.

* * * * *

Vivie, on sizing up her affairs, got Monsieur Walcker, the Baptist pasteur, to convey a letter to the American Consulate General.  Walcker was used to such missions as these, of which the German Government was more or less cognizant.  The Germans, among their many contradictory features, had a great respect for religion, a great tolerance as to its forms.  They not only appreciated the difference between Jews and Christians, Catholics and Lutherans, but between the Church of England and the various Free Churches of Britain and America.  The many people whom they sentenced to death must all have their appropriate religious consolation before facing the firing party.  Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinists were all provided for; there was a Church of England chaplain for the avowed Anglicans; but what was to be done for the Free Churches and Nonconformist sects of the Anglo-Saxons?  They were not represented by any captive pastor; so in default this much respected Monsieur Walcker, the Belgian Baptist, was called in to minister to the Nonconformist mind in its last agony.  He therefore held a quasi-official position and was often entrusted with missions which would have been dealt with punitorily on the part of any one else.  Consequently he was able to deliver Vivie’s communication to the American Consul-General with some probability of its being sent on.  It contained no further appeal to American intervention than this:  that the Consul-General would try to convey to England the news of her mother’s death to such-and-such solicitors, and to Lewis Maitland Praed A.R.A. in Hans Place.