could form no distinct image. He was
encompassed by a general sense of desolation, springing from the loss
of his money, which was pierced every now and then by a strange sense
of guilt. It seemed to have something to do with Bessie, this last,
though what he could not have told.

So they sat, till Mary Anne's voice called "Isaac" from the top of the
stairs.

Isaac stood up, drew one deep breath, controlled himself, and went,
John following.

Mary Anne held the bedroom door open for them, and the two men entered,
treading softly.

The women stood on either hand crying. They had clothed the dead in
white and crossed her hands upon her breast. A linen covering had been
passed, nun-like, round the head and chin. The wound was hidden and
the face lay framed in an oval of pure white, which gave it a strange
severity.

Isaac bent over her. Was this _Bessie_--Bessie, the human, faulty,
chattering creature--whom he, her natural master, had been free to
scold or caress at will? At bottom he had always been conscious in
regard to her of a silent but immeasurable superiority, whether as a
mere man to mere woman, or as the Christian to the sinner.

Now--he dared scarcely touch her. As she lay in this new-found
dignity, the proud peace of her look intimidated, accused him--would
always accuse him till he too rested as she rested now, clad for the
end. Yet she had bade him kiss her--and he obeyed her--groaning within
himself, incapable altogether, out of sheer abasement, of saying those
words she had asked of him.

Then he sat down beside her, motionless. John tried once or twice to
speak to him, but Isaac shook his head impatiently. At last the mere
presence of Bolderfield in the room seemed to anger him. He threw the
old man such dark and restless looks that Mary Anne perceived them,
and, with instinctive understanding, persuaded John to go.

She, however, must needs go with him, and she went. The other woman
stayed. Every now and then she looked furtively at Isaac.

"If some one don't look arter 'im," she said to herself, "'ee'll go as
his father and his brothers went afore him. 'Ee's got the look on it
awready. Wheniver it's light I'll go fetch Muster Drew."

With the first rays of the morning Bolderfield got up from the bed in
Mary Anne's cottage, where she had placed him a couple of hours before,
imploring him to lie still and rest himself. He slipped on his coat,
the only garment he had taken off,