The great spire of the cathedral towered above her. The tones of the organ came throbbing from within. A funeral cortege entered. There was a coffin, piled high with wreaths of flowers. There the same dread pomp and circumstance of death that was attendant upon her husband. She shuddered as she turned aside her head.
Yes! Yes! She would go—go to-morrow. She must go! In her nervousness her handkerchief dropped from her hand.
As Grannan bent forward to pick it up, he observed a single white flower that had fallen from the wreaths piled upon the coffin, and gathered this in his hand also. He started to offer it to her; but, observing the thoughtful, troubled look upon her face, refrained. They had now stopped; and, a moment later when in a fit of abstraction he was attempting to pinion the flower to the lapel of his coat, she involuntarily seized his hand.
“What is it?” he asked.
Her face crimsoned as she instantly withdrew her hand, and struggled for composure. “Why—er, it’s bad luck,” she exclaimed.
“What’s bad luck?” asked he, with that peculiar tone of voice indicating that there was no answer for his query.
“Oh, nothing; silliness, mere nonsense,” she said, betraying signs of her agitation which Grannan, however, failed to discover. “And now,” she continued, “I must say good-bye, for you are going away, you say, and I must thank you, oh, I can’t say how much, for your offer of the beautiful horse.”
“And, do you really mean that you will not accept my gift?” he said, slowly.
She bit her lip and bent her eyes downward, while she moved the point of her shoe restlessly upon the stone paving.
“O, I might manage,” she at length began, hesitatingly, “if only to gratify your whim, to keep it, for a while; but—”