out him, and bowed herself, and lifted
him from the couch, and the men could not believe it when they saw her
turn with him and lay him down in his coffin, alone, with no one to help
her.

For she was very strong. She stood and looked down at him a long time,
and once she stopped and moved one of his crossed hands, which touched
the edge. And then she drew from her neck, from beneath the shawl, a
piece of fine black lace, and laid it gently over and about his head.

"Cover it," she said to the men, and she stood waiting, lest they should
touch him with their hands.

She had seen his face for the last time, and when they had covered him,
they laid the coffin in another of lead which they had brought, and she
stood quite still, watching the gleaming melted stuff that ran along the
edges of the grey lead, like quicksilver, under the hot tool of copper.
When that was done, with main strength they laid him in the third, which
was covered with black velvet. And there were screws.

At last they went away, and Matilde set the tall candlesticks on each
side of the velvet thing, and looked at it again. Then she, too, with
still covered head, went towards the door. But between the coffin and
the door, she stood still, swaying a little, till she fell to her full
length backwards and straight, as a cypress tree falls when it is cut
down. But she was not dead, for she was too strong to die then. The
servants carried her away to her own room, calling others to help them,
for she was heavy, and they had to take her down the stairs. It was
afternoon then, and when she came to herself and opened her eyes, she
bitterly cursed the day, for it would have been good to die. But she
never went again to the room where she had watched.

She lay still a long time, alone in silence. Then, from a room beyond
hers, came the wild crash of her husband's laughter. She sat up. Her
face was grim and terrible, ghastly and stained with rouge, as the shawl
fell back upon her shoulders. She sat up and listened, and her smooth
lips twisted themselves angrily, one against the other, as a tiger's
sometimes do, when there is blood in the air. She knew now that she was
really alive, for she thought of Veronica.

Veronica had not known in the night. Her rooms were at the farther end
of the apartment in a quiet part of the house, and when she had left
Bosio she had gone to bed immediately and had dismissed her maid.
Elettra came from the room to find the hous