More than ten days had passed since Stella's death.

Her mother had asked me to see to the arrangements for the child's funeral, declaring herself too ill to attend to anything.

I was glad enough to accede to her request, for I was thus able to avoid the Romani vault as a place of interment.

I could not bear to think of the little cherished body being laid to molder in that terrific place where I had endured such frantic horrors.

Therefore, informing all whom it concerned that I acted under the countess's orders, I chose a pretty spot in the open ground of the cemetery, close to the tree where I had heard the nightingale singing in my hour of supreme misery and suffering.