They might murmur, but they did not understand.

What had she to do with empty shows and vain enjoyments?
No! She was absorbed by very different preoccupations.

She was the devoted guardian of a sacred trust.

Her place was in the inmost shrine of the house of mourning--where she alone had the right to enter, where she could feel the effluence of a mysterious presence, and interpret, however faintly and feebly, the promptings of a still living soul.

That, and that only was her glorious, her terrible duty.