Circumstantial Evidence

Well, if she wouldn't look at him when he was alive, she might show some
feeling now he's dead. (So Justice.) She showed no feeling. That is to say, none perceptible to the eyes of
Justice.

On Thursday morning she heard from Tyson. A short note: "I am more sorry
than words can say. I wish I could be with you, but I'm kept in this
infernal place till the beginning of next week. I hope the little man
will pull through. Take care of yourself," and the usual formula.

She sat down and wrote a telegram, brutally brief, as telegrams must be.
"Died yesterday. Funeral Friday, two o'clock. Can you come?"

Two hours later the answer came in one word--"Impossible." She flushed
violently and set her face like a flint.

But she showed no feeling. None when they screwed the baby into a box
lined with white satin; none when they lowered him into his grave and
piled flowers and earth upon him; none when, as they drove home from the
funeral, Mrs. Wilcox's pent-up emotions broke loose in a torrent of
words.

Having gone through so much, it occurred to Mrs. Wilcox that the time had
now come to look a little on the bright side of things. "Well," she began
with a faint perfunctory sigh, "I am thankful we've had a fine day. The
sunshine makes one hope. You'll remember, Molly, it was just the same at
your poor father's funeral. We had a sudden gleam of sunlight between the
showers. There were showers, for my new crape was ruined. And in December
we might have had snow or pouring rain--so bad for the clergyman--and
gentlemen, if they take their hats off. Some don't; and very sensible
too. They catch such awful colds at funerals, standing about in their wet
feet, and no one likes to be the first to put up an umbrella. I didn't
see Captain Stanistreet in the church--did you?--nor yet at the grave.
Rather strange of him. I think under the circumstances he might have
come--Nevill's oldest friend. Did you know Miss Batchelor was in church!
She was. Not in the chancel--away at the back. You couldn't see her. I
think it showed very nice feeling in her to come, and to send those
lovely roses too--from her own greenhouse. I must say everybody has been
most kind, and there wasn't a hitch in the arrangements. I often think
you have only to be in real trouble to know who your true friends are.
I'm sure the sympathy--and the flowers--you wouldn't have known he was
lying in his little coffin--and Swinny--that woman has feeling. I saw
her--sobbing as if her heart would break. We misjudged her, Molly, we did
indeed. Really, her devotion at the last--"