“Who was that?” she asked.

“An old man,” he answered, “a very old man; they say he was ninety-four; but his name I do not know.”

She mused awhile, looking out with fixed eyes.

“That is why the bell rang so cheerfully,” she said. “When the old die it is well; they have had their time. It is when the young die that the bells weep drops of blood.”

“But the old love life,” he said; for it was sweet to hear her speak.

She raised herself on her elbow.

“They love life, they do not want to die,” she answered, “but what of that? They have had their time. They knew that a man’s life is three-score years and ten; they should have made their plans accordingly! But the young,” she said, “the young, cut down, cruelly, when they have not seen, when they have not known — when they have not found — it is for them that the bells weep blood. I heard in the ringing it was an old man. When the old die — . Listen to the bell! it is laughing — ‘It is right, it is right; he has had his time.’ They cannot ring so for the young.”

She fell back exhausted; the hot light died from her eyes, and she lay looking out into the street. By-and-by stragglers from the funeral began to come back and disappear here and there among the houses; then all was quiet, and the night began to settle down upon the village street. Afterward, when the room was almost dark, so that they could not see each other’s faces, she said, “It will rain to-night;” and moved restlessly on the pillows. “How terrible when the rain falls down on you!”

He wondered what she meant, and they sat on in the still darkening room. She moved again.

“Will you presently take my cloak — the new gray cloak from behind the door — and go out with it. You will find a little grave at the foot of the tall blue gum-tree; the water drips off the long, pointed leaves; you must cover it up with that.”

She moved restlessly as though in pain.

Gregory assented, and there was silence again. It was the first time she had ever spoken of her child.

“It was so small,” she said; “it lived such a little while — only three hours. They laid it close by me, but I never saw it; I could feel it by me.” She waited; “It’s feet were so cold; I took them in my hand to make them warm, and my hand closed right over them they were so little.” There was an uneven trembling in the voice. “It crept close to me; it wanted to drink, it wanted to be warm.” She hardened herself — “I did not love it; its father was not my prince; I did not care for it; but it was so little.” She moved her hand. “They might have kissed it, one of them, before they put it in. It never did any one any harm in all its little life. They might have kissed it, one of them.”