They had a small white coffin in their care, and placed it on a table near the bed.

Then Jane stood up and if an unhappy soul had risen from the grave, it could not have shocked them more.

She stood erect and looked at them.

Her tall form, in its crushed white gown, her deathly white face, her black eyes gleaming with the lurid light of despair, her pale quivering lips, her air of hopeless grief, shocked even these men, used to the daily sight of real or pretended mourners.

With a motion of her hand she prevented them coming closer to the dead child, and then by an imperative utterance of the word, "_Go_," sent them from the room.