They had fashioned her a coffin with sides of shining copper the colour of the autumn that had now passed away. Eric had to stand by and see how they lifted the body he loved, and laid it, all rigid and small, within the three sides of the metal box that received in unmoved silence this, his faded dream.
The gypsies had sullenly refused to let him carry her himself; they jealously desired to have at least her inert body within their arms, they who had never dared touch a single hair of her head.
They did not know that she had died beneath the kiss of his lips, but they somehow guessed that at the end he had awakened her sleeping soul; and although they had dearly loved his beautiful face, Eric had always been an alien in their midst, all shining and fair, a being of light amongst their sombre race.
Now she was dead—Stella was dead—the Luck of their tribe lay white and cold in her last resting-place. Now she was theirs, and this son of another clime must relinquish his right, and leave her pure perfection between their dusky hands.
So while they were carrying her from out her tent Eric wandered with dragging feet into the forest where he had so often sat, painting her lovely face.
Now all the gold had fallen to the ground, the trees stood gaunt and bare. Over his cruelly bowed head the branches stretched naked and grey; from every twig large dropping tears fell splashing on the carpet of faded leaves.
Nowhere could he find the smallest plant or flower out of which to wind her a final wreath the same as those she had always worn. In vain he searched each sheltered corner; wherever he peered, all was dark and dead, killed by the frost of the night.
When he came back to where she lay, pale and still, all that he had to bring to the woman he loved was a crown of thorns. These he pressed on her snowy brow where they rested, sharp and hard, amongst her silky tresses, so that verily she resembled a martyred queen upon the bier of a beggar.
In a circle around her coffin the gypsies had lighted blazing fires, and now that their work was done they left the stranger standing in lonely communion with that silent shape that never again would look upon the light of day.
As he knelt beside her lowly bed, his face hidden on the heart that beat no more, a sound of wings came wafted upon the wind, and there, fluttering above the lifeless maiden, was his trusted companion the milk-white hawk, holding in its sharpened beak the chain with the moon-coloured diamond.