“In the midst of life we are in death.” The words were repeated back again from the walls, and the kneeling effigies in stone seemed to take up the text and say it over again with the echoes.
The great black coffin stood in the chancel, and Arthur could not help picturing the dead face of the merchant.
How changed everything was. How sad, how hopeless! And yet Arthur’s own deep love, for a moment, lit up his thoughts with a hope that had scarcely had a place in his heart before; but he banished the thought in a moment as selfish.
Richard Tallant was there amongst the mourners, loudest in his Amens, and apparently most moved, as he should be, at the pathetic solemnity of the church service.
Arthur quietly walked over the fields to the Somertons, whilst the coffin was being laid in the grave.
A faint streak or two of sunlight struggled through the mist here and there, but with little or no influence on the soddened, damp atmosphere, which penetrated everything.
Arthur found Mrs. Somerton alone in a high-backed chair by the fire. He knew that he was no favourite with the bailiff’s wife; but he bade her “Good-morning” with a quiet courtesy peculiarly his own, and she was evidently not displeased at the visit.
“You have been ill, I fear,” said Arthur, noticing the unusual wrappers about the arm-chair, and Mrs. Somerton’s rather pale face.
“Yes, sir, very ill,” she said, in a subdued voice.
“I am sorry to hear it; but hope I may congratulate you upon having got over the worst of it.”