There was only one person visible in this large, cold, dark church, and that was a man in the front pew, entirely in black, who neither sat nor knelt, but drooped languidly against the wooden rest in front of him, with his face hidden in his right hand.
Portland and Romney took off their hats and approached the altar; they had nearly reached it before they noticed the King, whom they had left at his wife's grave.
Their footsteps were very noticeable in the sombre stillness. The King looked up and rose, holding heavily to the arm of the pew.
Romney hesitated, but Portland stepped up to William.
"We had best return, sire."
The King was silent, his eyes fixed on the altar and the fluttering gold light that dwelt there—a radiance in the gloom.
Portland touched his arm and he moved then, with no sign of animation, towards the Abbey door; his two friends followed shivering in the great spaces of the church that were more bitterly cold than the outer air.
The King's eyes turned to the shadowed dark aisles which led to the chapel of the seventh Henry and the spot where the Queen, a few months ago young, and beautiful, and gay, now lay among her royal kinsmen, dust with dust.
The King opened the heavy door and stepped out into the bitter light of the snowstorm which hid sky and houses, whitened the coach waiting and the liveries of the impatient footmen who walked about in the endeavour to keep warm. The King himself was in an instant covered from head to foot; he gave a lifeless shudder as one so sick with life that sun and snow were alike to him.
He entered the coach and the two lords followed him; there was no word spoken; his friends had lost heart in the fruitless endeavour of comfort; he had scarcely spoken since the Queen's death, scarcely raised his eyes; for six weeks he had remained in his chamber, and now he came abroad it was to no purpose, for he took no interest in anything in life.