vital and necessary like the other, but I want you to do one thing for
me, if you will. We all acquiesced, but no one spoke; there was no need
to speak:--
I want you to read the Burial Service. She was interrupted by a deep
groan from her husband; taking his hand in hers, she held it over her
heart, and continued: You must read it over me some day. Whatever may
be the issue of all this fearful state of things, it will be a sweet
thought to all or some of us. You, my dearest, will I hope read it, for
then it will be in your voice in my memory for ever--come what may!
But oh, my dear one, he pleaded, death is afar off from you.
Nay, she said, holding up a warning hand. I am deeper in death at
this moment than if the weight of an earthly grave lay heavy upon me!
Oh, my wife, must I read it? he said, before he began.
It would comfort me, my husband! was all she said; and he began to
read when she had got the book ready.
How can I--how could any one--tell of that strange scene, its
solemnity, its gloom, its sadness, its horror; and, withal, its
sweetness. Even a sceptic, who can see nothing but a travesty of bitter
truth in anything holy or emotional, would have been melted to the heart
had he seen that little group of loving and devoted friends kneeling
round that stricken and sorrowing lady; or heard the tender passion of
her husband s voice, as in tones so broken with emotion that often he
had to pause, he read the simple and beautiful service from the Burial
of the Dead. I--I cannot go on--words--and--v-voice--f-fail m-me!
* * * * *
She was right in her instinct. Strange as it all was, bizarre as it may
hereafter seem even to us who felt its potent influence at the time, it
comforted us much; and the silence, which showed Mrs. Harker s coming
relapse from her freedom of soul, did not seem so full of despair to any
of us as we had dreaded.
339