sking itself why things should be, faithful as a dog to those who
were kind to it, obeying the dumb instinct of a violence that in his
betters would be called 'high spirit,' where--Felix wondered--where was
it?

And what were they thinking--Nedda and that haunted boy--so motionless?
Nothing showed on their faces, nothing but a sort of living
concentration, as if they were trying desperately to pierce through and
see whatever it was that held this thing before them in such awful
stillness. Their first glimpse of death; their first perception of that
terrible remoteness of the dead! No wonder they seemed to be conjured
out of the power of thought and feeling!

Nedda was first to turn away. Walking back by her side, Felix was
surprised by her composure. The reality of death had not been to her
half so harrowing as the news of it. She said softly:

"I'm glad to have seen him like that; now I shall think of him--at peace;
not as he was that other time."

Derek rejoined them, and they went in silence back to the hotel. But at
the door she said:

"Come with me to the cathedral, Derek; I can't go in yet!"

To Felix's dismay the boy nodded, and they turned to go. Should he stop
them? Should he go with them? What should a father do? And, with a
heavy sigh, he did nothing but retire into the hotel.

CHAPTER XXXVI

It was calm, with a dark-blue sky, and a golden moon, and the lighted
street full of people out for airing. The great cathedral, cutting the
heavens with its massive towers, was shut. No means of getting in; and
while they stood there looking up the thought came into Nedda's mind:
Where would they bury poor Tryst who had killed himself? Would they
refuse to bury that unhappy one in a churchyard? Surely, the more
unhappy and desperate he was, the kinder they ought to be to him!

They turned away down into a little lane where an old, white, timbered
cottage presided ghostly at the corner. Some church magnate had his
garden back there; and it was quiet, along the waving line of a high
wall, behind which grew sycamores spreading close-bunched branches, whose
shadows, in the light of the corner lamps, lay thick along the ground
this glamourous August night. A chafer buzzed by, a small black cat
played with its tail on some steps in a recess. Nobody passed.

The girl's heart was beating fast. Derek's face was so strange and
strained. And he had not yet said one word to her. All sorts of fear