strange thoughts, till at length her eyes flashed and her
breath came fast, as though this paper referred to herself, and could
seal her fate for life.

When the bearers came in to fetch away the body she was still sitting
there, gazing as if spell-bound at the papyrus; but she sprang up, shook
herself, and then bid farewell to the cold rigid form of the mother on
whose warm heart she had so often rested, and to whom she had been the
dearest thing on earth--and even then the solace of tears was denied
her.

She no longer suffered the deep remorse that had tormented her; for she
felt now that her intercourse with her last mother had not been put an
end to by death; that after a short parting they would meet again--soon
perhaps, perhaps even to-morrow--meet for a fulness of speech, an
outpouring of the heart, a revelation of all the past more open and
unreserved than could ever be between mortal beings, even between mother
and daughter. And when she who was sleeping there, blind, deaf, and
senseless, should awake again, up there, with eyes clearer than those of
men below, and the ears and senses of a spiritual being to see and hear
and judge all she had known and done, all she had felt and made others
feel--then, she told herself, her mother might perhaps blame her and
punish her more than she had ever done on earth, but she would also
clasp her more closely to her heart and comfort her more earnestly.

She whispered gently in her ear as if she were still alive: "Wait
awhile, only wait: I shall come soon and tell you everything!"

And then she kissed her so passionately and recklessly that the nuns
were shocked and dragged her away, ordering the bearers to close the
coffin. They obeyed, and when the wooden lid fell over the sleeping
form, shutting it in with a slam, and hiding it from the girl's sight,
the barrier gave way which had hitherto restrained her tears and she
began to weep bitterly; now, too, the feeling that she had indeed lost
her mother took complete possession of her--the sense of being an orphan
and alone, quite alone in the wide world.

She saw and heard no more of what took place round the beloved dead; for
when she took her hands from her face streaming with tears, the house
of the rich widow no longer sheltered its mistress; her remains had been
borne away to the nearest mortuary. The law forbade its being any longer
kept within doors, but did not allow of its being buried till night
fell. The chi