With the certainty of a blind man, the assurance of a seer who has divined what the future holds, he approached the vault.  He was aware that the little gate in the railing would be open.  It was.  He was aware that the iron door in the side of the vault would be unlocked.  It was.  He pushed it and entered.  All difficulties and hindrances had been removed.  No odour of death greeted his nostrils, unless the strong smell of chloroform can be called the odour of death.  He struck a match.  The first thing he saw was a candle and a screwdriver, and then the match blew out.  The door of the vault was ajar, and he would not close it.  He dared not.  He struck another match and put it to the candle, and the vault was full of jumping shadows.  And he looked and looked again.  Yes, down in that corner she lay, motionless, lifeless, done with for ever and ever.  Only her face was visible.  The rest of her seemed to be covered with a man’s overcoat, flung hastily down.  He stared, enchanted by the horror.  What was that white stuff round her head?  Part of it seemed to be torn, and a strip fluttered across her closed eyelids.  He went nearer.  He touched—­cold!  Could she be so soon cold?  And then the truth swept over him, and almost swept his senses away, that this image in the corner was not she, but merely that waxen thing made by the sculptor in Paris, that counterfeit which had deceived him in the drawing-room of the flat.

Then where was she?  And why was not this counterfeit in its coffin, in which it had been buried with all the rites of the Church?  The coffin?  Yes, the coffin was there at his feet, with its brass plate, which had rusted at the corners; and below it, in some undefined depth, was another coffin, the sarcophagus of Tudor himself.  He stooped and shifted the candle.  On Camilla’s coffin were a number of screws, rolled about in various directions; only one screw was in its place.  He seized the screwdriver—­and in that moment a tiny part of his intelligence found leisure to decide that this screwdriver was slightly longer than the one he had used aforetime for a similar purpose—­and he unscrewed the solitary screw and raised the lid of the coffin, letting all the screws roll off it with a great rattle....  An overwhelming rush of chloroform vapour escaped....  She lay within, dressed in her black dress, and her dress had been crammed into the coffin hastily, madly, and was thrust down in thick, disorderly folds about her feet, and her hair half covered her face.  And her face was slightly flushed, and her eyelids quivered, and the cheeks were warm.  He put his hands under her armpits and wrenched her out and carried her from the vault.  And then he sank to the ground sobbing.

What caused him to sob?  If any man dared now to ask him, and if he dared to answer, he might reply that it was not grief nor joy, nor the reaction from an intolerable strain, but simply the idea of the terrific and heart-breaking cruelty of Ravengar which had dragged from him a sob.