w but ardent words the
excessive whiteness of the garment. For none sees but she that there is
a black spot upon the robe which they believe to be immaculate. And she
would warn them of their error, but she cannot; and when they avert
their faces to wipe away their tears, the stain might be easily seen,
but when they turn to continue the last offices, folds or flowers have
mysteriously fallen over the stain, and hide it from view.

And it is great pain to her to feel herself thus unable to tell them of
their error, for she well knows that when she is placed in the tomb, and
the angels come, that they will not fail to perceive the stain, and
seeing it they will not fail to be shocked and sorrowful,--and seeing it
they will turn away weeping, saying, "She is not for us, alas, she is
not for us!"

And Kitty, who is conscious of this fatal oversight, the results of
which she so clearly foresees, is grievously afflicted, and she makes
every effort to warn her friends of their error: but in vain, for there
appears to be one amid the mourners who knows that she is endeavouring
to announce to them the black stain, and this one whose face she cannot
readily distinguish, maliciously and with diabolical ingenuity withdraws
attention at the moment when it should fall upon it.

And so it comes that she is buried in the stained robe, and she is
carried amid flowers and white cloths to a white marble tomb, where
incense is burning, and where the walls are hung with votive wreaths and
things commemorative of virginal life and its many lovelinesses. But,
strange to say, upon all these, upon the flowers and images alike there
is some small stain which none sees but she and the one in shadow, the
one whose face she cannot recognise. And although she is nailed fast in
her coffin, she sees these stains vividly, and the one whose face she
cannot recognise sees them too. And this is certain, for the shadow of
the face is sometimes stirred by a horrible laugh.

The mourners go, the evening falls, and the wild sunset floats for a
while through the western Heavens; and the cemetery becomes a deep
green, and in the wind that blows out of Heaven, the cypresses rock like
things sad and mute.

And the blue night comes with stars in her tresses, and out of those
stars a legion of angels float softly; their white feet hang out of the
blown folds, their wings are pointed to the stars. And from out of the
earth, out of the mist, but whence and how