And so it befell her to be buried in the stained robe. And she is taken away amid flowers and white cloths to a white tomb, where incense is burning, and where the walls are hung with votive wreaths, and things commemorative of virginal life. But upon all these, upon the flowers and images alike, there is some small stain which none sees but she and the one in shadow, the one whose face she cannot recognise. And although she is nailed fast in her coffin, she sees these stains vividly, and the one whose face she cannot recognise sees them too. And this is certain, for the shadow of the face is stirred by laughter.
The mourners go; the evening darkens; the wild sunset floats for a while through the western heavens; the cemetery becomes a deep green, and in the wind that blows out of heaven the cypresses rock like things sad and mute. Then the blue night comes with stars in her tresses, and out of those stars angels float softly; their white feet hanging out of blown folds, their wings pointing to the stars. And from out of the earth, out of the mist—but whence and how it is impossible to say—there come other angels, dark of hue and foul smelling. But the white angels carry swords, and they wave these swords, and the scene is reflected in them as in a mirror; the dark angels cower in a corner of the cemetery, but they do not utterly retire.
The tomb mysteriously opens, and the white angels enter the tomb. And the coffin is opened and the girl trembles lest the angels should discover the stain she knew of. But lo! to her great joy they do not see it, and they bear her away through the blue night, through the stars of heaven. And it is not until one whose face she cannot recognise, and whose presence among the angels of heaven she cannot comprehend, steals away one of the garlands with which she is entwined, that the fatal stain becomes visible. Then relinquishing their burden, the angels break into song, and the song they sing is one of grief; it travels through the spaces of heaven; she listens to its wailing echoes as she falls—as she falls towards the sea where the dark angels are waiting for her; and as she falls she leans with reverted neck and strives to see their faces, and as she nears them she distinguishes one.
'Save me, save me!' she cried; and, bewildered and dazed with the dream, she stared on the room, now chill with summer dawn. Again she murmured, 'It was only a dream, it was only a dream;' again a sort of presentiment of happiness spread like light through her mind, and again the voice within her said, 'But all was not a dream—there was something that was worse than the dream.' And with despair in her heart she sat watching the cold sky turn to blue, the delicate, bright blue of morning, and the garden grow into yellow and purple and red.
She did not weep, nor did she moan. She sat thinking. She dwelt on the remembrance of the hills and the tramp with strange persistency, and yet no more now than before did she attempt to come to conclusions with her thought; it was vague, she would not define it; she brooded over it sullenly and obtusely. Sometimes her thoughts slipped away from it, but with each returning a fresh stage was marked in the progress of her nervous despair.
And so the hours went by. At eight o'clock the maid knocked at the door. Kitty opened it mechanically, and she fell into the woman's arms, weeping, sobbing. The sight of the female face brought relief; it interrupted the jarred and strained sense of the horrible; the secret affinities of sex quickened within her. The woman's presence filled Kitty with the feelings that the harmlessness of a lamb or a soft bird inspires.
XII.
'But what is it, Miss, what is it? Are you ill? Why, Miss, you haven't taken your things off; you haven't been to bed!'
'No; I lay down…. I have had frightful dreams—that is all.'
'But you must be ill, Miss; you look dreadful, Miss. Shall I tell Mr.
Hare? Perhaps the doctor had better be sent for.'