Meanwhile, into all her thoughts about herself and Newbury there rushed at recurrent intervals the memory, the overwhelming memory, of her last sight of John and Alice Betts. That gray face in the summer dusk, beyond the window, haunted her; and the memory of those arms which had clung about her waist. Was there a beyond?--where were they?--those poor ghosts! All the riddles of the eternal Sphinx leaped upon Marcia--riddles at last made real. Twenty-four hours ago, two brains, two hearts, alive, furiously alive, with human sorrow and human revolt. And now? Had that infinitely pitiful Christ in whom Newbury believed, received the two tormented souls?--were they comforted--purged--absolved? Had they simply ceased to be--to feel--to suffer? Or did some stern doom await them--still--after all the suffering here? A shudder ran through the girl, evoking by reaction the memory of immortal words--"_Her sins which are many are forgiven; for she loved much_." She fed herself on the divine saying; repressing with all her strength the skeptical, pessimistic impulses that were perhaps natural to her temperament, forcing herself, as it were, for their sakes, to hope and to believe. Again, as the afternoon wore away, she was weighed down by the surrounding silence. No one in the main pile of building but her mother and herself. Not a sound, but the striking of the great gilt clock outside. From her own room she could see the side windows of her mother's sitting-room; and once she thought she perceived the stately figure passing across them. But otherwise Lady Coryston made no sign; and her daughter dared not go to her without permission. Why did no letter come for her, no reply? She sat at her open windows for a time, watching the front approaches, and looking out into a drizzling rain which veiled the afternoon. When it ceased she went out--restlessly--to the East Wood--the wood where they had broken it off. She lay down with her face against the log--a prone white figure, among the fern. The buried ring--almost within reach of her hand--seemed to call to her like a living thing. No!--let it rest. If it was God's will that she should go back to Edward, she would make him a good wife. But her fear, her shrinking, was all there still. She prayed; but she did not know for what. Meanwhile at Redcross Farm, the Coroner was holding his inquiry. The facts were simple, the public sympathy and horror profound. Newbury and Lord William had given their evidence amid a deep and, in many quarters, hostile silence. The old man, parchment-pale, but of an unshaken dignity, gave a full account of the efforts--many and vain--that had been made both by himself and his son to find Betts congenial work in another sphere and to persuade him to accept it.