It seemed to her that she did not suffer—there was nothing in her mind save the blank feeling which one might experience sitting over the ruin an earthquake had made, after burying home, love, everything the soul clings to. North filled the chasm and smoothed the earth down over it carefully. Then, without a pause, he straightened the lid of the coffin—there was no haste, no recoiling—he drove back the nails that had been loosened, into their place—then he raised the box in his arms, saying, only:
"Come!"
Mellen walked forward, Elizabeth followed a little behind—she did not ask a single question, but moved slowly down the avenue towards the outer gates. They passed through, out into the high road, up the little hill, Mellen walking sternly on, and the woman following, North marching forward with long strides, bearing the coffin on his shoulder.
They reached the graveyard; the fence was broken in one place; Mellen wrenched off the picket and forced a passage. He passed through, and Elizabeth mechanically kept in his footsteps. At the lower end of the yard was a single grave, with the earth still fresh around it; not a tuft of grass had sprung on the torn soil, but dead leaves had drifted over it, and the frost crusted it drearily, turning its moisture to ice. Elizabeth might have recognised this grave as one that had been given to a fair woman who had perished in the late shipwreck, had she found any room for thought out of her great misery. But she only saw a dreary-looking grave, at which North paused. He set down the coffin and again raised his spade. Elizabeth stood by, silently turning to stone, as it were. She watched him dig a deep cavity, saw him lower the box down into it, then he began to fill up the gap.
"It is done, your sin is buried; we part, and forever," said Mellen.
"We part here!" echoed Elizabeth.
"I have no more to say," he went on; "if you can live, do so; but, remember, death comes at last—death and the judgment. I think, had your sin been other than it is, I could have promised you forgiveness in your last hour. But the horror of your crime in choosing that man——"
"I never knew it," she broke in. "Oh, believe that—do believe that! I ask nothing more—I have no right even to ask so much—but if you should one day hear that I am dead, believe that I have now told you the truth."
"You have the means of subsistence," he went on; "the stocks I settled upon you will be sufficient for your support. If you ever see this wretch again, it is because you are altogether bad."
"Only say that when I am dead you will pardon me—only say that, Grantley Mellen, for I have great need of one kind word."