For near upon a month Moll Davenant lay a-dying to the sublime litany of a great passion; and in her dying touched the hem of the garment that veils the majesty of Life.
She died on the Day of the Dead—her slender fingers in Betty’s—passed, with a little sigh of glad relief to be asleep, into the eternal mystery.
Eustace Lovegood, his head buried in his arms, knelt by the bed. He was roused to consciousness of death by a sob from Betty as she touched the sightless eyes and drew down the blinds of the dead woman’s soul.
“Betty,” said he, a great tear trickling slowly down the gentle fellow’s pale cheek, “she was happy, indeed, to go into the dark holding your dear hand.”
The last leaves of the year were falling, a threadbare russet carpet to their feet, as they bore Moll’s still white body to her grave. Babette with Betty added the holiness of her innocent heart’s service to the simple dignity of the slow procession.
As they turned out of the street into the Boule Miche, all wayfarers halting and standing with heads uncovered as the poor silent body passed to its chill resting-place—children ceasing from play, hushedly, to pull off caps of reverence; workmen and loafers, students and women, merchants and servants, paying homage to that strange procession of the dead which all must one day lead—a workman turned to another:
“Poor soul,” said he, with a great pity—“she will never walk Paris again.”
So might that sorrowing angel have spoken as, with irrevocable clang, he sadly shut on departing Eve the excluding gates of Paradise.