ng so. Hush! They are bringing him
down. I must have a drink before we start, and you'd better join me."

There was no pretence about his drink this time, and a pretty stiff one
it was, but I fancy my own must have run it hard. In my case it cast a
merciful haze over much of the next hour, which I can truthfully
describe as one of the most painful of my whole existence. I can have
known very little of what I was doing. I only remember finding myself
in a hansom, suddenly wondering why it was going so slowly, and once
more awaking to the truth. But it was to the truth itself more than to
the liquor that I must have owed my dazed condition. My next
recollection is of looking down into the open grave, in a sudden
passionate anxiety to see the name for myself. It was not the name of
my friend, of course, but it was the one under which he had passed for
many months.

I was still stupefied by a sense of inconceivable loss, and had not
raised my eyes from that which was slowly forcing me to realize what
had happened, when there was a rustle at my elbow, and a shower of
hothouse flowers passed before them, falling like huge snowflakes
where my gaze had rested. I looked up, and at my side stood a
majestic figure in deep mourning. The face was carefully veiled, but
I was too close not to recognize the masterful beauty whom the world
knew as Jacques Saillard. I had no sympathy with her; on the
contrary, my blood boiled with the vague conviction that in some way
she was responsible for this death. Yet she was the only woman
present--there were not a half a dozen of us altogether--and her
flowers were the only flowers.

The melancholy ceremony was over, and Jacques Saillard had departed in
a funeral brougham, evidently hired for the occasion. I had watched
her drive away, and the sight of my own cabman, making signs to me
through the fog, had suddenly reminded me that I had bidden him to
wait. I was the last to leave, and had turned my back upon the
grave-diggers, already at their final task, when a hand fell lightly
but firmly upon my shoulder.

"I don't want to make a scene in a cemetery," said a voice, in a not
unkindly, almost confidential whisper. "Will you get into your own cab
and come quietly?"

"Who on earth are you?" I exclaimed.

I now remembered having seen the fellow hovering about during the
funeral, and subconsciously taking him for the undertaker's head man.
He had certainly that app