to do with death? She
who was luxury itself has vanished from these halls. Shall the mute
bronze go on smiling over its wine cup while she who was its prototype
is carried by without a smile on the lips once so vermeil with pride and
tropical languors!

Arrived at the top of the house, Bertram knocked at the door with the
strange lock, and uttering his own name, asked if there was anything he
could do here or elsewhere to show his sympathy and desire to be of use
in this great and sudden bereavement. There was no immediate reply and
he began to fear he would be obliged to retire without seeing his uncle,
when the door was slowly opened and Mr. Sylvester came out. Instantly
Bertram understood the anxiety of the servant. Not only did Mr.
Sylvester's countenance exhibit the usual traces of grief and horror
incident to a sudden and awful calamity, but there were visible upon it
the tokens of another and still more unfathomable emotion, a wild and
paralyzed look that altered the very contour of his features, and made
his face almost like that of a stranger.

"Uncle, what is it?" sprang involuntarily to his lips. But Mr. Sylvester
betraying by a sudden backward movement an instinctive desire to escape
scrutiny, he bethought himself, and with hasty utterance offered some
words of consolation that sounded strangely hollow and superficial in
that dim and silent corridor. "Is there nothing I can do for you?" he
finally asked.

"Everything is being done," exclaimed his uncle in a strained and
altered voice; "Robert is here." And a silence fell over the hall, that
Bertram dared not break.

"I have help for everything but--" He did not say what, it seemed as if
something rose up in his throat that choked him.

"Bertram," said he at last in a more natural tone, "come with me."

He led him into an adjoining room and shut the door. It was a room from
which the sunshine had not been excluded and it seemed as if they could
both breathe more easily.

"Sit down," said his uncle, pointing to a chair. The young man did so,
but Mr. Sylvester remained standing. Then without preamble, "Have you
seen her?"

There was no grief in the question, only a quiet respect. Death clothes
the most volatile with a garment of awe. Bertram slowly shook his head.
"No," said he, "I came at once up stairs."

"There is no mark on her white body, save the least little discolored
dent here," continued his uncle, pointing calmly to his temple. "She had