Neither of them had moist eyes; the elder looked about the chapel with blank gaze, often shivering with cold; Emma's face was bent downwards, deadly pale, set in unchanging woe.

A world had fallen to pieces about her; she did not feel the ground upon which she trod; there seemed no way from amid the ruins.

She had no strong religious faith; a wail in the darkness was all the expression her heart could attain to; in the present anguish she could not turn her thoughts to that far vision of a life hereafter.

All day she had striven to realise that a box of wood contained all that was left of her sister.

The voice of the clergyman struck her ear with meaningless monotony.