At last she dried her tears and with a happier look in her eyes bade me wait a little until she returned. Soon again she came back, carrying some folds of black sateen over her arm. As she ripped at this with a pair of scissors, I noticed there was a deep frilling to it. Also a bright blush came into her cheek at the curious glance I gave to the somewhat skimpy lines of her skirt. But the next instant she was busy stretching and tacking the black material over the coffin.
The men had completed the new grave. It was only three feet deep, but the water coming in had prevented them from digging further. As we laid the coffin in the hole it looked quite decent now in its black covering. It floated on the water, but after some clods had been thrown down, it sank with many gurglings. It was as if the dead man protested against his bitter burial. We watched the grave-diggers throw a few more shovelsful of earth over the place, then go off whistling. Poor little Berna! she cried steadily. At last she said:
"Let's get some flowers."
So out of briar-roses she fashioned a cross and a wreath, and we laid them reverently on the muddy heap that marked the Bank clerk's grave.
Oh, the pitiful mockery of it!
CHAPTER XV
Soon I knew that Berna and I must part, and but two nights later it came. It was near midnight, yet in no ways dark, and everywhere the camp was astir. We were sitting by the river, I remember, a little way from the boats. Where the sun had set, the sky was a luminous veil of ravishing green, and in the elusive light her face seemed wanly sweet and dreamlike.
A sad spirit rustled amid the shivering willows and a great sadness had come over the girl. All the happiness of the past few days seemed to have ebbed away from her and left her empty of hope. As she sat there, silent and with hands clasped, it was as if the shadows that for a little had lifted, now enshrouded her with a greater gloom.
"Tell me your trouble, Berna."