And the two met in the narrow street nearly at the inn door, and could
not pass each other for a long time, and the bier, that bore the relics
of mortality, got wedged against the cart that carried the men who had
made those bones what they were, and in a few hours must die for it
themselves. The mob had not the quick intelligence to be at once struck
with this stern meeting: but at last a woman cried, "Look at your work,
ye dogs!" and the crowd took it like wildfire, and there was a horrible
yell, and the culprits groaned and tried to hide their heads upon their
bosoms, but could not, their hands being tied. And there they stood,
images of pale hollow-eyed despair, and oh how they looked on the bier,
and envied those whom they had sent before them on the dark road they
were going upon themselves! And the two men who were the cause of both
processions stood and looked gravely on, and even Manon, hearing the
disturbance, crept to the window, and, hiding her face, peeped trembling
through her fingers, as women will.
This strange meeting parted Denys and Gerard. The former yielded
to curiosity and revenge, the latter doffed his bonnet, and piously
followed the poor remains of those whose fate had so nearly been his
own. For some time he was the one lay mourner: but when they had reached
the suburbs, a long way from the greater attraction that was filling the
market-place, more than one artisan threw down his tools, and more
than one shopman left his shop, and touched with pity or a sense of our
common humanity, and perhaps decided somewhat by the example of Gerard,
followed the bones bareheaded, and saw them deposited with the prayers
of the Church in hallowed ground.
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