His sister's recently shaped grave lay just beyond.

As yet, Bertie had provided no headstone for the late Lady Tressilvain.
Hamil stood inspecting Malcourt's name, finding it impossible to realise that he was dead--or for that matter, unable to comprehend death at all.
The newly chiselled letters seemed vaguely instinct with something of Malcourt's own clean-cut irony; they appeared to challenge him with their mocking legend of death, daring him, with sly malice, to credit the inscription.
To look at them became almost an effort, so white and clear they stared back at him--as though the pallid face of the dead himself, set for ever in raillery, was on the watch to detect false sentiment and delight in it.

And Hamil's eyes fell uneasily upon the flowers, then lifted.

And he said aloud, unconsciously: "You are right; it's too late, Malcourt." There was a shabby, neglected grave in the adjoining plot; he bent over, gathered up his flowers, and laid them on the slab of somebody aged ninety-three whose name was blotted out by wet dead leaves.

Then he slowly returned to face Malcourt, and stood musing, gloved hands deep in his overcoat pockets.
"If I could have understood you--" he began, under his breath, then fell silent.