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 fears
and fancies beset her till she was trembling all over.

"What is it?" she said at last. "You haven't--you haven't stopped loving
me, Derek?"

"No one could stop loving you."

"What is it, then? Are you thinking of poor Tryst?"

With a catch in his throat and a sort of choked laugh he answered:

"Yes."

"But it's all over. He's at peace."

"Peace!" Then, in a queer, dead voice, he added: "I'm sorry, Nedda. It's
beastly for you. But I can't help it."

What couldn't he help? Why did he keep her suffering like this--not
telling her? What was this something that seemed so terribly between
them? She walked on silently at his side, conscious of the rustling of
the sycamores, of the moonlit angle of the church magnate's