Page:Magdalen by J S Machar.pdf/232

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226
MAGDALEN

old woman. Her eyes were red, but dry. She scanned the crowd. For a moment a sad happiness flashed over her face, and then she turned her head away.

Lucy mechanically joined the procession, and kept looking in one direction, where behind the coffin a bent head in a black kerchief was trembling. Slowly a gloomy sadness stole into her melancholy soul. The funeral march sounded so full of lament and chiding. All the bowed heads in front of her were nodding in even measure. It looked as though the black coffin were swimming over them. The golden, burning sun was reflected on two of its surfaces.

“So there he lies,” a painful inner voice whispered to her; “his eyes are now forever closed . . . his hands are crossed on his breast. . . . The end . . . the end. . . . It is only two weeks ago that you kissed that head in the park. . . . Now it is cold . . . as if of wax . . .” (a light chill passed over her back) . . . “So you are alone,” the