Next morning John and Mrs. Norton drove to the Rectory, and without asking for Mr. Hare, they went to her room. The windows were open; Annie and Mary Austin sat by the bedside watching. The blood had been washed out of the beautiful hair, and she lay very white and fair amid the roses her friends had brought her. She lay as she had lain in one of her terrible dreams—quite still, the slender body covered by a sheet. From the feet the linen curved and marked the inflections of the knees; there were long flowing folds, low-lying like the wash of retiring water. And beautiful indeed were the rounded shoulders, the neck, the calm and bloodless face, the little nose, and the drawing of the nostrils, the extraordinary waxen pallor, the eyelids laid like rose-leaves upon the eyes that death has closed for ever. An Ascension lily lay within the arm, in the pale hand.
Candles were burning, and the soft smell of wax mixed with the perfume of the roses. For there were roses everywhere—great snowy bouquets and long lines of scattered blossoms, and single roses there and here, and the petals falling were as tears shed for the beautiful dead, and the white flowerage vied with the pallor and the immaculate stillness of the dead.
When they next saw her she was in her coffin. It was almost full of white blossoms—jasmine, Eucharis lilies, white roses, and in the midst of the flowers the hands lay folded, and the face was veiled with some delicate, filmy handkerchief.
For the funeral there were crosses and wreaths of white flowers, roses, and stephanotis. And the Austin girls and their cousins, who had come from Brighton and Worthing, carried loose flowers. Down the short drive, through the iron gate, through the farm gate, the bearers staggering a little under the weight of lead, the little cortege passed two by two. A broken-hearted lover, a grief-stricken father, and a dozen sweet girls, their eyes and cheeks streaming with tears. Kitty, their girl friend, was dead. The word 'dead' rang in their hearts in answer to the mournful tolling of the bell. The little by- way along which they went, the little green path leading over the hill, was strewn with blossoms fallen from the bier and the fingers of the weeping girls.
The old church was all in white; great lilies in vases, wreaths of stephanotis; and, above all, roses—great garlands of white roses had been woven, and they hung along and across. A blossom fell, a sob sounded in the stillness. An hour of roses, an hour of sorrow, and the coffin sank out of sight, a snow-drift of delicate bloom descended into the earth.
XVI.
John wandered through the green woods and fields into the town. He stood by the railway gates. He saw the people coming and going in and out of the public-houses; and he watched the trains that whizzed past.
A train stopped. He took a ticket and went to Brighton.
He walked through the southern sunlight of the town. The brown sails of the fishing-boats waved in translucid green; and the white field of the sheer cliff, and all the roofs, gables, spires, balconies, and the green of the verandahs were exquisitely indicated and elusive in the bright air; and the beach was loud with acrobats and comic minstrels, and nurse-maids lay on the pebbles reading novels, children with their clothes tied tightly about them were busy building sand castles.
But he saw not these things; on his mind was engraved a little country cemetery—graves, yews, a square, impressive spire. He heard not the laughter and the chatter of the beach, but the terrible words: Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and the dread, responsive rattle given back by the coffin lid. 'And these,' his soul cried, 'are the true realities, death, and after death Heaven or Hell!'