It was understood that the body might be given up to them for burial. Though whether this was a special favour, accorded to the entreaties of Mrs. Andinnian, or a not-unusual one, Karl knew not. He was glad of this, so far: but he would have thought it better that the place of interment should be Weymouth, and the ceremony made one of the utmost privacy. Mrs. Andinnian, however, ruled otherwise. She would have her unfortunate son taken to Foxwood, and she at once despatched Karl thither to make arrangements.
On the day but one after Karl reached Foxwood, all that remained of poor Sir Adam arrived. Mrs. Andinnian came in company. She could not bear to part even with the dead.
"I wish I could have been him," remarked Karl sadly, as he stood with his hand on the coffin.
"I have seen him, Karl," she answered amid her blinding tears. "They suffered me to look at him. His face was peaceful."
They, and they only, saving Hewitt, attended the funeral. He was buried in the family vault, in Foxwood churchyard, side by side with Sir Joseph and Lady Andinnian.
What an ending, for a young man who, but a few short months before, had been full of health and hope and life!
But the world, in its cold charity; said it was better so.
[CHAPTER VIII.]
In the Avenue d'Antin
New Year's Day. Or, as the French more emphatically term it, the Jour de l'An. Gay groups went strolling along the Boulevards in the glowing sunshine, gazing at the costly étrennes displayed in the tempting shops: women glancing at the perfect attire of other women that passed; men doffing their hats so perpetually that it almost seemed they might as well have kept them off altogether; children in their fantastic costumes chattering to their mothers, and turning their little heads on all sides: all, men, women, and children, apparently free from every care, save that of pleasure, which constitutes so observable a feature in Parisian life.