Benedict looked at her sadly--the rather that she did not weep--on the contrary, she smiled. It seemed as though she had given all her tears to the living Karl and had none left for the dead. Benedict saw with profound surprise that she went to and fro in the room, busied with a number of little matters relating to Karl's burial and every moment showed him some fresh article. "Look!" she would say, "he liked this; he noticed that; we will put it beside him in his coffin. By the way," she added suddenly, "I was just forgetting my hair which he liked so much." She unfastened her wreath, took hold of her hair, which hung below her knees, cut it off, and made a plait which she knotted round Karl's bare neck. Evening came. She talked at length with Benedict of the hour at which the funeral should take place on the morrow. As it was now but six in the evening, she begged him to see to all the details that would be so painful to the family, and indeed, almost as painful to him who had loved Frederic and Karl like two brothers. He was to order a wide oak coffin, himself: "Why a wide one?" Benedict asked. Helen only answered: "Do as I ask you, dear friend, and blessings will be upon you." She gave orders herself for the body of her husband to be placed in its shroud at six the next morning. Benedict obeyed her in everything. He spent his whole evening over these funeral preparations and did not return to the house until eleven o'clock. He found Helen's room transformed, a double row of candles burning around the bed. Helen was sitting on the bed and looking at Karl. Even as she no longer wept she now no longer prayed. What had she left to ask of Heaven now that Karl was dead? Towards midnight her mother and sister, who had been praying, and who understood her calmness no more than Benedict did, went to their own rooms. Helen embraced them sadly but without tears and asked that the little child might be brought, so that she might kiss him too. She held him some time in her arms and then gave him back to his mother. When she was left alone with Benedict she said to him: "Pray take some hours' rest, either here or at home; do not be uneasy about me. I will be down, dressed, and sleep beside him." "Sleep!" said Benedict, more and more amazed. "Yes," said Helen simply, "I feel tired. While he was alive, I could not sleep. Now--" She did not finish the sentence. "When shall I come back?" asked Benedict. "When you please," said Helen. "Let it be about eight in the morning." Then, looking through the open casement towards the sky, she said: "I think there will be a storm to-night." Benedict pressed her hand and was going, but she called him back. "Excuse me, dear friend," said she, "have you been told that they are coming at six in the morning to wrap him in his shroud?" "Yes," said Benedict, his voice choked with tears. Helen guessed at his feelings. "You do not mean to kiss me then, my friend?" she observed.