Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/786

746 the greater part of the money, but the appeal was not responded to as it might have been.

She found that, owing to the state of the weather, the monument could not be completed for some months, but she selected the site in Mortlake Cemetery, the spot which she and her husband had chosen many years before, and had the ground pegged out. The next day, though very ill, she, with her sister Mrs. Fitzgerald, went down to Liverpool to meet her husband's remains, which were arriving by sea. Lord and Lady Derby, who had always been her kind friends, had arranged everything for her, and the next morning Lady Burton went on board ship. She says, "I forgot the people when I saw my beloved case, and I ran forward to kiss it." It was taken to the train, and Lady Burton and her sister travelled by the same train to Mortlake, where they arrived that evening. The coffin was conveyed by torchlight to a temporary resting-place in the crypt under the altar of the church, where it remained until the tent was erected. The same evening Lady Burton returned to London, and, her work being done, the reaction set in. She broke down and took to her bed that night, where she remained for many weeks. She says: "I cannot describe the horror of the seventy-six days enhanced by the fog, which, after sunlight and air, was like being buried alive. The sense of desolation and loneliness and the longing for him was cruel, and it became