She sent away all other watchers, keeping only her sister with her, and Anne observed in her a strange protecting gentleness when she spoke of the dead man.
"I do not know whether dead men can feel and hear," she said.

"Sometimes there has come into my mind--and made me shudder--the thought that, though they lie so still, mayhap they know what we do--and how they are spoken of as nothings whom live men and women but wait a moment to thrust away, that their own living may go on again in its accustomed way, or perchance more merrily.

If my lord knows aught, he will be grateful that I watch by him to-night in this solemn room.

He was ever grateful, and moved by any tenderness of mine." 'Twas as she said, the room was solemn, and this almost to awfulness.

It was a huge cold chamber at best, and draped with black, and hung with hatchments; a silent gloom filled it which made it like a tomb.