Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the city room.djvu/126

 birdlike creature who had fluttered about the office, the despair of the copy-readers and the subject of Herforth's prayers. They left her there, at her request, and a few loiterers, lingering long after the others, saw her crossing the churchyard through the falling darkness, with the old sexton by her side, their footsteps crackling on the crisp snow. He had carried her as a little girl, on his shoulder—and he obeyed her unquestioningly now. He opened the door of the vault in which her husband had been temporarily placed, and left her there alone. When he returned, an hour later, she was still there—a crushed, desolate figure with its head upon its knees. It was very dark in the vault, but through the open door one could see the heartless sparkle of the cold stars. She rose to her feet as he entered and grasped him by the arm.

"I must see him once more," she cried. "I will see him just once more and then I 'll go away. I promise you. Only bring a light and let me see him as I say good-by."

The old man obeyed her dumbly. Groping in his pockets he found a match and held it up to her. "It's the only one," he said.