I essayed to open it.

It resisted my efforts, and then I realised that it was locked for the night.
The appreciation of my position afforded me not the slightest dismay.

On the contrary, I think my feelings were rather of relief.

I had not known whither I should repair--so distraught was my mood--and now chance had settled the matter for me by decreeing that I should remain.
I turned and slowly I paced back until I stood beside the great black catafalque, at each corner of which a tall wax taper was burning.

My footsteps rang with a hollow sound through the vast, gloomy spaces of that cold, empty church; my very breathing seemed to find an echo in it.
But these were not things to occupy my mind in such a season, no more than was the icy cold by which I was half-numbed--yet of which I seemed to remain unconscious in the absorbing anguish that possessed me.
Near the foot of the bier there was a bench, and there I sat me down, and resting my elbows on my knees I took my dishevelled head between my frozen hands.