I felt a giving and a drawing away; saw the crowd sway to his
will.
"In the midst of life we are--in death."
Again the tones woke me to a sharper sense of the scene. Tears stood in
many eyes. The people had melted at his touch. They were his. For a
while I lost myself in watching them, until again a changed intonation
drew me back to the man before us.
"We therefore commit her body to the ground--earth to earth--ashes to
ashes--dust to dust--"
My will was powerless to resist the beautifully delivered lines, to
doubt the integrity of the man who uttered them. The little lumps of wet
earth that he threw against the coffin struck against my heart with a
sense of the futility of all things. And then as suddenly, drawn by
something compellingly alive and pervading, I glanced at Jim, who stood
next to me; and catching the slant of his vision followed it to the edge
of the crowd, where, her thin dress clinging to her knees, her face
almost blue with cold, stood Lisbeth; and there was across her eyes and
mouth an expression of contempt and loathing such as I had never seen in
a girl so young. Jim was watching her intently, noting, with that
certain appraisal of his, the etched profile; and, with all an artist's
sensibility, reading life into the line of head and shoulders.
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