this time for a fortnight. The dark curtain of mystery had not been lifted an inch when the day came for the murdered Lady Hereward to go to the family vault in Riding St. Mary Church.
A few intimate friends, who desired it, were allowed to bid her a last farewell before her coffin was fastened down, and those who did said that never had they seen her so young and fair and sweet as she appeared pillowed on her favourite white roses. The expression of horror had faded from her face; the pearly flower-petals and green leaves hid the wound in her neck; and she was dressed, not in a stiffly made garment suggestive of death, but in a filmy tea-gown of white chiffon which she had brought home from Paris, the day before she died. People whispered it about that with hands clasped lightly over a loose bunch of roses (she had been vain of her beautiful hands) and the half-smile into which her lips had mercifully relaxed, she was like a statue whose name might be "Mystery."
If only the dead lips could have spoken, just once! But it seemed, so those who saw her said, as if she rejoiced in her silence, as if she would not speak if she could. And since no more was heard about the experiment which was to be tried upon her eyes, the world which talked of her constantly took it for granted either that it had failed, or that the experts had decided it would be useless, for some reason, to attempt it.
