She bowed assent in silence, took the tin sconce into her hand, and entered the chamber of the dead.
It was a low stone-roofed room, with bare walls blackened by smoke and time, and entirely devoid of furniture. In its midst stood the coffin, roughly made, and stuffed with nothing but half mouldy straw. In it rested the corpse, beneath a grey pall, scarcely long enough to cover the tall frame of the dead, who had been laid down in the clothes he wore in life. At the lady's entrance two rats who had been gnawing at his boots, jumped out of the straw into their holes. She did not notice them. Her eyes were fixed upon the head of the coffin, where the pall just showed a high white forehead with a deep scar down to the very eyebrows. She placed the taper in a niche of the wall, and with her remnant of strength approached to raise the pall. One glance at the rigid face furrowed by the conflict of life and of death--and she sank down beside the coffin.
Yet it was no swoon that mercifully shrouded her senses. It was only that her legs would no longer support her; her mind was fully awake, and her heart felt all its old wounds open, and begin to bleed and burn afresh. She had fallen on her knees, her hands folded, her eyes fixed on the pale face of her dead son, averted as it seemed from her in indifference, in almost anger, and upturned to the black arch of the roof. Oh! she would have given her life, the last poor remnant of her days on earth, if those eyes could but have opened once more for one farewell look, if those discoloured lips could once--only once--have called her "mother!"
The sergeant who was waiting in the passage, was under the impression that he heard a groan proceed from the chamber of the dead. What it meant he did not know. If indeed it were her son he would not disturb the mortal anguish of the mother. Suddenly he heard her steps approach the door, and saw her coming out, the light in her hand, her head erect as if no shock had bowed her down, her eyes strained and strange, but meeting his.
"I have kept you waiting," she said, "which was unnecessary. One glance is sufficient to reveal the truth to a mother: but it has shaken me. I had to rest a little."
"So it is not he!" cried her faithful friend. "God be praised!"
"To all Eternity!" said she. "Let us go. The place is ghastly."
She went on hastily with the taper, and steadily descended the steps. In the hall where the watcher sat, she put down the taper on the table, and her hand no longer trembled.
"You will see," said the sergeant to the sleepy official, "that to-morrow, not later than five, the sexton comes and bears the body to its rest."
"The grave is already dug, sir," was the reply, "near the place where a year ago Hans Frisdolin, the parricide was laid."