So Major Marsden, driving back with poor Healy's Mary Ann and the cherub wielding a piece of sugarcane as trumpet, found Belle still sleeping.
Then together, in the fresh early morning, they broke the sad tidings to the girl. How, it does not much matter, for words mean nothing. We say, "He is dead," many and many a time, carelessly, indifferently. Then comes a day when the sentence is fraught with wild despair and helpless pain. The sun seems blotted out, and the world is dark. Yet the words are the same, nor can pen and ink write them differently.
"Let me see that he is dead! Oh, let me see him!" was her cry; so they took her across to the shabby room where everything stood unchanged save for the sheeted figure on the string bed. The gardener had strewn some roses over it and the sun streamed in brightly. The sight brought no real conviction to Belle. It all seemed more dreamlike than ever. To fall asleep, as she had done, in the turmoil of life, and to wake finding the hush of death in possession of all things! She let Philip Marsden lead her away passively like a child, and all through the long day she sat idle and tearless, with her hands on her lap, as if she were waiting for something or some one. Yet it was a busy day in that quiet, empty house; for in India death comes rudely. Many a time has the father to superintend the making of the little coffin, while the mother stitches away to provide a daintier resting-place for the golden head that is used to frills and lace; until, in the dawn, those two go forth alone to the desolate graveyard, and he reads the Church service as best he can, and she says "Amen" between her sobs. There was none of this strain for Belle, nothing to remind her of the inevitable; so she wondered what they wanted of her when, as the glare of sunset reddened the walls of her room, Major Marsden came and looked at her with pitying eyes. "It is time we were starting, Miss Stuart," he said gently.
"Starting! where?"
"We thought you would like to go to the cemetery, and I have arranged to drive you down. It will be a military funeral, of course."
She rose swiftly in passionate entreaty. "Ah no, no! not so soon! he is not dead! Oh I cannot, I cannot!" Then seeing the tender gravity of his face, she clasped her hands on his arm and begged to see him once more,--just to say good-bye.
He shook his head. "It is too late--it is best not."
"But I have no dress,--it can't be--" she pleaded vainly.
"Every one will be in white as you are," he returned with tears he could not check in his eyes. "Come! it will be better for you by and by." He laid his hand on her clasped ones. She looked in his eyes doubtfully, and did as she was bidden.
"We will drive out a bit first," said Philip, when she had taken her seat by his side in the tall dog-cart that seemed so out of keeping with its dismal office. "We have plenty of time for I thought the air would do your head good,--and,--it was best for you to be away just now."