"Christobel," he said, "this is no place for you. Come away at once. Do you hear? I bid you come with me at once."
The only thing she really minded was that his hat was on, in the presence of her Dead.
She could not free her arm from the grip of the Professor.
She turned and pointed to the stretcher, with her left hand.
"My place is here," she said, clearly and deliberately. "I have the right to be here. This is all a fearful nightmare, from which we are bound before long to wake. But meanwhile, I tell you plainly—as I ought to have told you before—this is the body of the man I love."
At that moment, one of the crowd, springing on to the breakwater behind the Professor, struck off his hat with a cane. It fell into the sea.
The Professor let go her arm, and turned to see who had perpetrated the outrage, and whether the hat could be recovered.
Then she bent over the stretcher.
"Boy dear," she whispered, in tones of ineffable tenderness; "this is where they have laid you; but I will take you away."
She put her arms beneath the body; then, with an almost superhuman effort, lifted it, and gathered it to her. It felt limp and broken. The head fell heavily against her breast. The blood and salt-water soaked through her thin muslin blouse. But she held him, and would not let him go. "I will take him away," she whispered; "I will take him away."