The Vigil by the Bier

And as I looked at her, my profound grief for Alresca made me her
judge. I forgot for the instant the feelings with which she had once
inspired me, and which, indeed, had never died in my soul.

"How do you explain this?" I demanded of her in a calm and judicial
and yet slightly hostile tone.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "How sad it is! How terribly sad!"

And her voice was so pure and kind, and her glance so innocent, and
her grief so pitiful, that I dismissed forever any shade of a
suspicion that I might have cherished against her. Although she had
avoided my question, although she had ignored its tone, I knew with
the certainty of absolute knowledge that she had no more concern in
Alresca's death than I had.

She came forward, and regarded the corpse steadily, and took the
lifeless hand in her hand. But she did not cry. Then she went abruptly
out of the room and out of the house. And for several days I did not
see her. A superb wreath arrived with her card, and that was all.

But the positive assurance that she was entirely unconnected with the
riddle did nothing to help me to solve it. I had, however, to solve it
for the Belgian authorities, and I did so by giving a certificate that
Alresca had died of "failure of the heart's action." A convenient
phrase, whose convenience imposes perhaps oftener than may be imagined
on persons of an unsuspecting turn of mind! And having accounted for
Alresca's death to the Belgian authorities, I had no leisure (save
during the night) to cogitate much upon the mystery. For I was made
immediately to realize, to an extent to which I had not realized
before, how great a man Alresca was, and how large he bulked in the
world's eye.