As he realized what it implied, de Socotra sharply straightened, and for an instant looked wildly around like a trapped creature. But he quickly controlled himself. He turned his back on the coffin.
"So this is your proof," he said, and God knows what effort it cost him to bring it out so nonchalantly; "but he's dead, too!"
"Follow me," said Amy.
She opened the door that communicated with Bessie's parlor. An overpowering breath of sweetness was wafted forth. She passed in. De Socotra followed to the door, walking steadily, but with a gait somewhat stiffer than his wont. At the door he put out a hand to steady himself. His eyes looked wildly around the next room, and he drew back a little as if his flesh refused to be subjected to a further horror.
This room, too, was a resting-place of the dead, but with a difference. Great, many-branched candlesticks stood around this rich bier flooding the room with a pale gold light. Roses pink and white and red were everywhere; sheaves of roses heaped on the coffin and strewn on the pall.
Amy's expression was very different as she stood beside this bier. She was still a marble woman, but it was a marble head of grief. Her hands involuntarily went to her breast. She gazed down, oblivious alike to de Socotra and to Greg. Greg looked at her and experienced the meaning of adoration.
De Socotra's horror-stricken eyes were fixed on the ceiling. Anon they darted frantically from side to side like rats threatened by fire. In the end he had to look. His eyes were dragged in agony to the dead man's face. A groan was forced from the bottom of his breast. At that moment the debonair scoundrel's spirit broke. His head fell forward, his limp arms dropped to his sides.
He saw the face of Antonio Bareda beautiful in death. The lips seemed to be on the point of breaking into the old friendly smile; there was a slight lift to the eye-brows that suggested light and humor lurking behind the lowered lids. The wrinkles of age were all smoothed out. The happy warrior slept the long sleep.
"Come closer," said Amy remorselessly.
The broken man had no thought but to obey. He approached the coffin's foot on sinking knees. The change in his face was shocking. He saw that the dead man held clasped in his hands the little black book in which was bound up "the happiness of a whole people," but de Socotra regarded that indifferently now.