It was three o’clock when Dil roused. Mrs. Minch sat quietly at her sewing. The wagon was pushed clear up to the window, empty.
“O Mrs. Minch, what has happened?” She sprang out, wild-eyed and quivering.
“My dear,” Mrs. Minch took her in her arms, “Bess is better off. She is in heaven with the good God, who will be tenderer of her than any human friend. She will have no more pain. She will be well and strong, and a lovely angel. You would not wish her back—”
“Yes, I do, I do. We was goin’ to heaven together in the spring; we had it all planned. And Bess wouldn’t ’a’ gone without me—oh, I know she wouldn’t. Where is she? What have you done with her?”
“She is in there.”
Dil flew to her mother’s room. The ironing-board lay on the bed, and a strange, still shape imperfectly outlined under the sheet.
“She looks like an angel,” said Mrs. Minch.
Dilsey Quinn stared, bereft of her senses for some moments. Slowly the incidents of the morning came over her—of last night, when Bess seemed so improved, so hopeful. She had seen dead people. Death was no stranger in Barker’s Court. There were “wakes,” and quiet, hurried burials. They died and were taken away, that was all. With a curious, obstinate unreason she knew Bess had died like all the rest; yet she had been so sure Bess could not die. But she had not gone to heaven. The breath had gone out of her body, but a breath couldn’t go to heaven. She had left her body here; the poor hurted legs the Lord Jesus would have mended. They could never be mended now, for they would be put in the ground.
She stood so still that Mrs. Minch raised the sheet. The pinched look was going out of the face, as it often does after death. The eyes were closed; the long bronze lashes were beautiful; the thin lips had been pressed rather tightly, as if in fear that they might betray their secret. Yet it had a strange, serene beauty.
Dil did not cry or utter a sound. A great solitude enveloped her, as if she were alone in a wide desert. She would never have any one to love or caress; a thick darkness settled all about her, as if now she and Bess were shut out of heaven forever. For what would the palace be, and the angels innumerable, if Bess was not there?