with pity and horror and indignation,
indeed; but--it was the face of a stranger.

Why had I not been content to remember her as I had known her in life!
She seemed so immeasurably removed from me now; and that not merely
because I could no longer think of her as Anne Pendennis,--only as "The
Grand Duchess Anna Catharine Petrovna, daughter of the Countess Anna
Vassilitzi-Pendennis, and wife of Loris Nicolai Alexis, Grand Duke of
Russia," as the French inscription on the coffin-plate ran,--but also
because the mystery that had surrounded her in life seemed more
impenetrable than ever now that she was dead.

Where was her father, to whom she had seemed so devotedly attached when
I first knew her? Even supposing he was dead, why was he ignored in that
inscription, save for the mere mention of his surname, the only
indication of her mixed parentage. She had never spoken of him since
that day at the hunting-lodge when she had said I must ask nothing
concerning him. I had obeyed her in that, as in all else, and had even
refrained from questioning Vassilitzi or any other who might have been
able to tell me anything about Anthony Pendennis. Besides, there had
been no time for queries or conjectures during all the feverish
excitement of these days in Warsaw. But now, in this brief and solemn
interlude, all the old problems recurred to my mind, as I stood on guard
in the death-chamber; and I knew that I could never hope to solve them.

The ceremony was over at last. As in a dream I followed the others, and,
at a low-spoken word of command, filed past the catafalque, with a last
military salute, though I was no longer in uniform, for Mishka had
brought me a suit of civilian clothes.

In the same dazed way I found myself later riding near the head of the
procession that passed through the dark silent streets, and out into the
open country. I didn't even feel any curiosity or astonishment that a
strong escort of regular cavalry--lancers--accompanied us, or when I
recognized the officer in command as young Mirakoff, whom I had last
seen on the morning when I was on my way to prison in Petersburg. He
didn't see me,--probably he wouldn't have known me if he had,--and to
this day I don't know how he and his men came to be there, or how the
whole thing was arranged. Anyhow, none molested us; and slowly, through
the sleeping city, and along the open road, the cortege passed,
ghostlike, in the dead of night. The air was piercingly cold