He did not dare to go back to bed this time; to sleep was worse than to be awake. He sat down on the bed and held his throbbing brow between his hands while his elbows rested on his knees; but gradually fatigue overcame him and he fell asleep again. This time he found himself standing among a crowd of other persons with lanthorns by the side of the moat at Holwick. A little figure was being drawn up from the water. He saw it carried in over the drawbridge, where the old arms of the Mowbrays looked down,--argent, a cross engrailed azure;[11] but he dared not follow. He seemed to stand there waiting for days and days. “Would no one ever come out?” Then the funeral cortège appeared from under the same gateway. He followed with the crowd, no one seemed to see him, and there, in the ancient churchyard of Middleton, he saw the little coffin lowered into the ground. [11] I.e., the field of the shield silver or white, the cross blue with an irregular border. When every one had gone he still stood by the grave, dazed and wondering. He was just about to leave, when a child’s figure in the crowd turned back. It was Audry. She came slowly up to him and looked from him to the grave and from the grave to him. Her face was filled with unutterable reproach. “You,” she said, and lifted her finger at him and was gone. He tried to run after her, but it was like running in heavy clay; his feet were as lead and he seemed to slip back a pace for every step he took forward. Finally he abandoned the attempt and, putting his hands over his face, he wept bitterly. He was still weeping when he woke. “Holy Mother,” he cried, “why did I do it?” The thought of the frail child bravely withstanding him in the courtyard of Holwick came back to him,--“little St. Aline,” as the villagers called her. Oh! how could he have done such a deed? “I am lost, damned, and nothing I may do can ever bring her back. Cain! Cain! unclean, branded and accurst!” It was morning now, should he go back and give himself up? Give himself up and be hanged! Surely it were better to slay himself with his own hands than do that! But the love of life is strong. Though he were dead, she would not come to life again; the only thing that seemed to offer any interest or hope was that some day he might be able to serve little Mistress Audry, Aline’s playmate, Aline’s friend, all that was left to represent the sweet child. So he rose and ate a few mouthfuls, by way of breakfast, and mounted his horse, intending to make his way to London. But the agony of his remorse would hardly allow him to sit his steed and, as he looked at the bright sunshine, he shuddered and cursed it in his heart. CHAPTER IX THE JUDGMENT