But just in time! Even as he spoke one of the stolid watching women nodded and looked at her neighbour interrogatively. The neighbour looked at the face on the cushions, and nodded also.
So, as if by common consent, the first faint whimper which heralds the true wailing began.
Khôjee paused in an 'Ameen' with a gasp, Khâdjee let her sobs grow into a cry.
But Noormahal neither stirred, nor uttered sound. Only as she lay over the child's feet a little shiver ran through her limbs as if she, too, were passing from the cold world.
An hour afterwards she was still lying so, face downwards, unrewarding, though they had moved her to the bed where Khâdeeja Khânum had spent so many hours in making tinsel caps.
One of them, which she had made for Sa'adut's four years, four months, and four days' reception into the church of the Clement and Merciful, was on the child's head now; for the tenders of the dead had prepared him for his burial.
Khôjee had brought out the few treasures of faded brocade the ruined palace still held, to fold about him softly, and with a sob which seemed to rend her heart, had bidden the signet of royalty be left on the little Heir's forefinger against the time when his mother should rouse herself to take her last look at him.
The wailers had departed to return later on. Khâdjee had succumbed to sorrow, and sought seclusion. Even Jehân had gone; the last to go, save Lateefa, who lingered half-indifferent, half-compassionate, impatient of poor Khôjee's tears over a loss that had been inevitable for months, yet not liking to leave them to be shed in absolute solitude.
'Thou art kind, Lateef,' she said at last. ''Tis woman's work, not man's: yet without thee, brother----' Her soft old eyes met his, and the tears in them seemed to find their way into his heart and melt it.
'Thou art welcome, sister,' he said gravely. 'I think all is as it should be now--I see naught amiss.'