Near him a girl clasped a crucifix. She, too, was alive, for her rounded bosom rose and fell gently, and the olive-brown cheeks were richly tinted with the warm colour of ripening apricots.
They rose from their knees, and the watcher noticed behind them a third figure,—a giant negro, fully a half over the six feet, in a livery of faded blue and gold. He had the unmistakable look of the congenital mute.
She stepped back of the door, as the young man and the giant mute lifted their burden very tenderly upon a bier of leafy boughs, scattered the flowers upon it and bore it down the staircase, the woman leading the way, with the crucifix held high before her.
To the left of the house and facing the morning sun, was a pile of black-red, newly-turned earth. There were mounds and crosses on either side.
Never noticing the one unbidden mourner who stood hidden behind the torn draperies of a window near them, they laid the quiet form on its bed of flowers in the dark earth.
The last rite payed, and the rough cross raised, they turned back towards the house, pausing under the trees. Sally listened to their voices, the young man's quite as pleasing in ordinary speech as in the chant, the woman's not shaming the rich contralto of the requiem, but shot through now, even in this sorrowful moment, with a certain lilt, as if she were altogether in love with him.
Their talk was all in French. Only a few nouns and verbs, and fewer adjectives, remained from Sally's old High-School vocabulary but she caught this much:
