‘You have not suffered?’

‘Oh, no.’

She said it without sighing:  nor was her speech mournful, only brief.

‘You have seen death before?’

’I sat by my father four nights.  I was a girl then.  I cried till I had no more tears.’

He felt a burning pressure behind his eyeballs.

‘Death is natural,’ he said.

‘It is natural to the aged.  When they die honoured . . .’

She looked where the dead man lay.  ’To sit beside the young, cut off from their dear opening life . . . !’ A little shudder swept over her.  ’Oh! that!’

’You were very good to come.  We must all thank you for fulfilling his wish.’

‘He knew it would be my wish.’

Her hands pressed together.

‘He lies peacefully!’

’I have raised the lamp on him, and wondered each time.  So changeless he lies.  But so like a sleep that will wake.  We never see peace but in the features of the dead.  Will you look?  They are beautiful.  They have a heavenly sweetness.’

The desire to look was evidently recurrent with her.  Dacier rose.

Their eyes fell together on the dead man, as thoughtfully as Death allows to the creatures of sensation.

‘And after?’ he said in low tones.

‘I trust to my Maker,’ she replied.  ’Do you see a change since he breathed his last?’

‘Not any.’

‘You were with him?’

‘Not in the room.  Two minutes later.’

‘Who . . .?’

‘My father.  His niece, Lady Cathairn.’

’If our lives are lengthened we outlive most of those we would have to close our eyes.  He had a dear sister.’

‘She died some years back.’

‘I helped to comfort him for that loss.’

‘He told me you did.’

The lamp was replaced on the table.

’For a moment, when I withdraw the light from him, I feel sadness.  As if the light we lend to anything were of value to him now!’

She bowed her head deeply.  Dacier left her meditation undisturbed.  The birds on the walls outside were audible, tweeting, chirping.

He went to the window-curtains and tried the shutter-bars.  It seemed to him that daylight would be cheerfuller for her.  He had a thirst to behold her standing bathed in daylight.

‘Shall I open them?’ he asked her.

‘I would rather the lamp,’ she said.

They sat silently until she drew her watch from her girdle.  ’My train starts at half-past six.  It is a walk of thirty-five minutes to the station.  I did it last night in that time.’

‘You walked here in the dark alone?’

’There was no fly to be had.  The station-master sent one of his porters with me.  We had a talk on the road.  I like those men.’

Dacier read the hour by the mantelpiece clock.  ’If you must really go by the early train, I will drive you.’

‘No, I will walk; I prefer it.’