'Well, Henry, I was so anxious to wait for a day or two to learn the sequel of the dreadful tragedy, that I persuaded Lord Sleaford to delay sailing. Next day he called at Belgrave Square, and told us he had heard that you had been taken suddenly ill and were lying unconscious at the studio. I went at once and saw the medical man, Mr. Finch, whom Mr. Wilderspin had called in. This gentleman took a serious view of your case. When I asked him what could be done he said that nothing would benefit you so much as removal from London, and recommended a sea voyage. It occurred to me at once to ask Lord Sleaford if we might take you in his yacht, and he with his usual good-nature agreed, and agreed also that Mr. Finch should accompany us as your medical attendant.' 'You know all?' I said; 'you know that she is dead.' 'Alas! yes.' At that moment the doctor came into the cabin, and my mother retired. 'When did you last see Wilderspin?' I asked Mr. Finch. 'Before leaving England to join a friend in Paris he went to Belgrave Square to get tidings of you, and I was there.' 'He told you--what had occurred to make me ill?' 'He told me that it was the death of some one in whom you took an interest, a model of his, but told it in such a wild and excited way that I lost patience with him. His addled brains are crammed with the wildest and most ignorant superstitions.' 'Did you ask him about her burial?' 'I did. I gathered from him that she was buried by the parish in the usual way. But I assure you the man's account of everything that occurred was so bewildered and so incoherent that I could really make nothing out of him. What is his creed? Is it Swedenborgianism? He seems to think that the model he has lost is a spirit (or spiritual body, to use his own jargon) sent to him by the artistic-minded spirits for entirely artistic purposes, but snatched from him now by the mean jealousy of the same spirit-world.' 'But what did he say about her burial?' 'Well, he seems not to have ignored so completely the mundane question of burying this spiritual body as his creed would have warranted, for he gave the mother money to bury it. The mother, however, seems to have spent the money in gin and to have left the duty of burying the spiritual body to the parish, who make short work of all bodies; and, of course, by the parish she was buried, you may rest assured of that, though the artist seems to think that she was simply translated to heaven like Elijah.' 'I must return to England at once,' I said. 'I shall apply to the Home Secretary to have the body disinterred.' 'Why, sir?' 'In order that she may be buried in a proper place, to be sure.' 'No use. You have no _locus standi_.' 'What do you mean?' 'You are not a relative, and to ask for a disinterment for such an unimportant reason as that you, a stranger, would prefer to see her buried elsewhere, would be idle.'