Page:The Old Countess (1927).pdf/35

 grew green and thick and the chestnut branches, over the wall, dropped their russet fruits upon it. She moved away, drawn towards this oasis.

There, against the wall, she saw another grave; different from all the rest. It was marked only by a heave of sod and by the simplest headstone; and, deep in the grass, the chestnut branches sweeping low above it, it had a solitary yet cradled look. Graham joined her as she stood beside it.

At the head three glass vases held sprays of autumn roses; faded, yet with a lingering colour; and a wreath of heather at the foot was still fresh. Marthe Ludérac was the name upon the stone, and above it: Priez pour elle. The dates showed that she had died six years before.

Jill and Graham stood, strangely silenced.

'Why is she all alone like this?' Jill whispered. 'She has gone as far away from the others as she could.'

'She shows her taste in that,' said Graham. 'But she was forty. Not young. We can't make a romance about her.'

'No; not a romance. But a tragedy, perhaps,' said Jill. 'I have a feeling that she was dreadfully unhappy.'

'Most people are, my dear. Even the people over there, under their tin tubs, suffered, you may be sure.'

'I have a feeling that she suffered differently,' said Jill. 'It's because she suffered differently that she's here, quite by herself; with no family about her.'

'She was a stranger in the place, perhaps.'

'Perhaps. But someone who lives here must have